


A very sherlocked case

by Johnlocked_writer (Carokation)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Angst and Feels, Chases, Crime Scenes, Crimes & Criminals, Eventual Fluff, Falling In Love, Hospital, Hurt, Hurt John Watson, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Poisoning, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock is actually caring, Slow Burn, Suspense, morgue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2019-10-21 03:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17634794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carokation/pseuds/Johnlocked_writer
Summary: Starting with an occurrence shortly before John's stay in Afghanistan, this takes part mainly after the events there, when John is back in London.Sooner or later, John meets Sherlock and is immediately faszinated by the intelligent and good looking consulting detective. But will his growing feelings be returned or will Sherlock get bored of him?With these and more questions going on in his head, John will life the time of his live together with a certain consulting detective, who's intelligent is only outdone by his lack of human emotions. Or is it really?





	1. Shortly before Afghanistan

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters known from Sherlock (BBC series) or from Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle) are not my own (although I might add some characters of my own). 
> 
> It´s my first Sherlock fanfic, so please comment what you think of it.

John walked happily down the street. He just got his first assignment as a brand-new army doctor and would fly to Afghanistan in merely a month. Now he was on his way to his little flat which he was sharing with Mike Stanford, a guy he got to know from Bart´s College. He would rather have had his own flat to be honest, but London being expensive and him not having a proper income yet, it really was all he could afford.

Without staying in his parent´s home, that is. Their house wasn´t too far from London. So theoretically he could have stayed there. The reason he was not was his father, being regularly drunk, which was a state in which he could and mostly would get quite violent. And guess who was getting the worst of it, if this happened? Indeed, John was the one he always would beat up worst, since however drunk he was, he did have a codex not to hit women. Not to mention John being a disappointment for him, not wanting to join the army as a “real man” (a soldier like his dad was before he got sacked), which he constantly reminded him of. So that only left John as a target. Well, his mother and sometimes even his sister Harry got something off too now and then, but only for trying of protecting him. Harry was always boasting about what a good sister she was, after this happened, which really only was when she was in a sisterly mood, which was seldom. 

This plus the fact he wanted to become an army doctor, which was luckily also nearly the only job coming close enough to being a soldier so that his dad doesn´t completely despise it, was the reason John left home as soon as possible. Right after college to be exact, regardless of the fact, that it meant doing a lot of part-time jobs. Nowadays it was only Christmas he came home for, a time, when his parent´s insisted for their children to visit. His father would try harder to play happy-family in this time and was actually more bearable then the rest of the year, since for the Watsons being religious (more or less), Christmas was of some importance. Well, he wasn´t there for much longer now anyway, thank god. 

He got to the end of the street and turned left in a rather deserted narrow street. This is, until all of a sudden a sturdy looking bald man with tattoos all over his muscular arms and thick neck came running from the other end of the street towards him. A short way behind him, a tall and slim, very elegant looking young man with curly black hair dressed in a long coat and another man, middle-aged, with a stronger stature and grey hair, being at the back, followed him. Apparently, they were trying to catch the guy in front, which John assumed, was a criminal. He was now only a few meters away from John and would pass him by very soon. 

But John, always being a man of strong morals, made a split-second decision and stepped quickly to the side, right in the way of the fleeing man. The latter crashed into him, causing both of them to fall to the ground. John’s body was pressed violently on the hard concrete, causing all air to leave his lungs and his head to hit the pavement hard, making him gasp in pain. The bulky man on top of him used his momentary disorientation to his advantage and suddenly, he was hauled up and there was a knife scratching slightly into the skin of John´s neck. “No, no, no, why does he have a bloody knife?” John cursed inwardly, feeling guilty for making the situation worse, at the same time hoping for the attractive (“what the heck am I thinking?!”) young man and his companion to save him.

Meanwhile, the persecutors caught up with them and stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the unfolding hostage situation. The grey-haired one grabbed his phone and spoke some urgent words in it, before drawing out a gun and pointing it to the criminal, shouting “drop the knife and get on your knees!”, while curly-hairs just stood there and roamed his steel blue eyes all over John. “Holy shit, is he checking me out?” John thought, trying to keep still and breathing shallowly to avoid a deepening of the cut. He considered fighting the man, using his fighting-training which he did in preparation for Afghanistan, but the grip the man had on him was very strong and he didn´t dare do something, not while the knife was on his neck. Also, he was feeling weaker by the second, his head throbbing really painfully. “Back away or this man will die!” the criminal shouted back, increasing the pressure of the knife. A small trace of blood was now running down from the wound. The guy with the phone looked unsure, changing a look with the tall one. Curly-hairs stepped a bit nearer and said in a deep, velvety voice: “You won´t kill him, since you’re a thief, not a killer, you don´t have the gut to do it, which is obvious considering your hand holding the knife is already shaking violently. Also, you did the stupid mistake of gripping the knife with your left hand, instead of your right one, which is stronger since you are clearly right-handed. You are in a panic, since your boss, who told you to steal the data stick, threatens to kill your wife, if you don´t succeed. How do I know this? I can see a part of the blackmail note sticking out of your pocket. So what are you going to do? The wisest decision by far would be to do what Lestrade said and cooperate with us, giving us information about the blackmailer, so we can catch him and meanwhile safe your wife. The worst would be to continue with your actions of what I strongly advise against.” This he all said very quickly, without a break. 

There was a short moment of suspense, while everyone seemed to take in the spoken words and no one moved. “You guarantee protection of my wife?” the knife armed man finally spoke. “Yes we do, we can get her into a save-house.” Lestrade answered, he also took a step closer and lowered his gun, making a reassuringly gesture. John felt the metal leaving his neck and the grip on his arm lessen. The knife fell to the ground and John was pushed forwards roughly in the direction of his rescuers. He stumbled and would have hit the ground a second time but before he crashed, he was caught and straightened up by another set of strong arms and found himself face-to-face with the elegant man, he still didn´t know the name of. John gulped and thanked the man in a croaking voice, while regaining his balance. “No problem.” was the nonchalant answer. 

Meanwhile, Lestrade was handcuffing the thief, regaining the data stick. The sounds of sirens came closer and a police car stopped beside them, two officers stepping out. “Ah, you´re there” Lestrade said to the police officers, “took you long enough! Take Mr Nelson to the interrogation room and make sure his wife is brought into a save house. I will follow shortly, after having a word with Sherlock.” The policemen carried out his order, leading Mr Nelson into their car and drove off. 

“So his name´s Sherlock” John thought dimly, having listened to Lestrade. While he was secretly enjoying the close proximity of Sherlock, his head was killing him by now and he felt quite sick (hopefully he wouldn´t have to vomit). Lestrade now turned to them, eyeing John and noticing his pale face. “I´m detective inspector Lestrade”, he said. “And as happy as we are for your help, in future you better should let the police do their work.” Sherlock snorted, as he heard that. “What´s so funny?” Lestrade asked, clearly irritated. “Nothing” Sherlock answered, “just the fact, that the police is utterly useless in solving any cases above a six without help from a mind like mine.” he added arrogantly. Lestrade just sighed. In this moment, an ambulance arrived, parking at the same spot, where the police car stood previously. “You should have someone have a look at your head, Mr..?” Lestrade shot John a questioning look. “Watson. John Watson.” He answered, shaking hands with Lestrade, who then turned around to ask Sherlock some questions concerning the case. Sherlock answered them, sounding very bored again and John reluctantly left them, not before throwing one more peek at Sherlock´s impressive figure and marvellous porcelain face. He hoped Sherlock wouldn´t notice, but then, he probably wouldn´t even see him again. While walking away, he made extra sure not to stumble and thus making a fool out of himself. Well, he probably already did, now that he thought about it.

****

John was finally back in his flat, making himself a tea after all the excitement. Mike seemed to be elsewhere, not that he minded. He needed a few minutes to clear his head (thankfully it wasn´t throbbing so badly now, the painkillers helped). What the heck was wrong with him, first stopping a thief, which had nearly double the mass of him, and then thinking stupid things about this Sherlock guy, even analysing his looks, as if he was gay?? He wasn´t gay, never had been. John was pretty damn sure that he could consider himself as your normal, average heterosexual being. He had never thought of any men as “elegant”, never admired one´s fair skin nor liked his deep voice… John was utter clueless and confused. How could one single man impress him more in a matter of a mere few minutes than any women ever could in days??? He really should better forget this fellow and concentrate on his nearing future as an army doctor. He would be away for a long time anyway. John emptied the rest of his tea in one big gulp and leaned heavily back in his armchair.


	2. An army doctor´s daily life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter basically describes John´s daily life as an army doctor in Afghanistan as well as his feelings in moments of private.

John has been in Afghanistan for a month now and was just beginning to fully acknowledge his live as an army doctor in a foreign and war shaken country.  
In the first few weeks, he got more and more used to the daily dangers from living in such an unsure and dangerous area. Even with the tented medical facility within the patrol base, where he was located, being guarded all time, there was always the risk of an attack of some sort, especially each time he was leaving the base, be it a nearby roadside bomb, gunshots or something else. 

Furthermore and in contrast to being a doctor in London or elsewhere in his home country, he constantly had to be ready to treat highly severe and often gruesome wounds in addition to treating common and minor ailments. Patients with very serious wounds, which couldn´t be treated sufficiently in their little facility, also had to be evacuated by helicopter after being stabilised and treated with life-saving interventions. As well as treating injured or sick soldiers, he was also providing emergency care for Afghan locals with limb or eyesight related injuries. All in all, it was a highly demanding but also rewarding job that he never got bored doing, despite all of the disadvantages and the daily risk.  
The time in the day he dreaded the most surprisingly wasn´t his exhausting and highly demanding working shift in the medical facility, but the lonely evenings in his little chamber. Of course, he got books and papers to read and a few other possibilities to enjoy his free time, like meeting with the few friends he had made since coming here. But often, he would sit on his (not so comfortable) bed, drink his tea and his thoughts would inevitably drift towards London, more precisely to Sherlock, which he somehow wasn´t able to forget, ever since their remarkable encounter two months ago. 

He remembered his enchanting, deeply intensive and intelligent eyes, which seemed to have a different colour depending on the angle of the light, his proud statue and fluently and well-spoken way of talking, showing his amazing intellect and last but not least, his striking appearance. He wondered about his working with the police, he didn´t seemed to a part of them since he so rudely insulted them of being too stupid to solve cases without his help, but what was he then, exactly? He had to ask him the next time he would see him… But then he would remember that not only he just met him one single time (and again asking himself why he is so obsessed with this man), but also the very slim chance to seeing him ever again. His time in Afghanistan had only just begun, he wouldn´t be back to London for a very long time. Even if he would, the chance of meeting one of about 8 million people living in the city coincidentally was vanishingly small. This thought always filled him with sadness. 

Today had been a particularly tiring day. He was having a trauma casualty caused by a gunshot in the stomach – an injury which is almost always a death sentence. All his training and preparedness failed, as the wound from the bullet had damaged too many organs. Too much blood had been pouring out of the wound and all of his efforts were unsuccessful. The injured soldier died right in front of him, leaving him with a dreadful feeling of guilt. He knew he had done everything in his power to save him, but it was the first one to die in his care and it hit him quite hard. Now, laying on his bed and trying to sleep, he saw a river of blood flowing from a deep, horrible wound as soon as he closed his eyes. Eventually, he fell asleep, but the lifeless dull eyes of the dead soldier seemed to follow him into his dreams, what tore him from his sleep more than once. Only when he drifted his thoughts towards Sherlock ones more, he was able to sleep undisturbed the rest of the night. The next day, he was very tired and only kept him awake by consuming huge amounts of coffee (the coffee they got there wasn´t really good, but he drank it anyway). In his short break (just a hurried meal, since he didn´t dare to leave his work place for too long), he made the decision to try to find out more about Sherlock in the evening. Then he got back to work and awaited his next patient, who was having a heat stroke caused by the scorching heat of the midday sun. Time went by slowly.

Back in his chamber, he first made tea (what else) and checked his phone for messages. Then he typed “Sherlock, London” in Google, hoping for a result. What a luck, that he at least happened to have such a rare name, he thought. After some searching, he found a homepage called “the science of deduction” by Sherlock Holmes. There were remarkably descriptions, of how he solved this case or that, by not only seeing, but deducing small details of someone. John was astonished at some of the descriptions, how could someone possibly get so much information just from the state of his clothes or the way his hands look?! Sherlock Holmes must really be a genius. He couldn´t find out much more, so he let it be then and prepared his meal, being very hungry after the long day.


	3. The ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in John´s POV for matters of dramaturgy.

I was treating a wounded soldier with a sprained ankle, nearly at the end of my shift. I was just about to dismiss my patient, when another soldier, heavily armed, came rushing in. “Sir, we need you outside, there was an ambush near the base, many of our men are badly wounded and need immediate treating.” he said, sounding out of breath. Stephen, a doctor who was normally working in the adjacent tent was already standing at his side. “You can go.” I said to my patient and hastily grabbed my medical equipment bag. “Lead the way.” I told the soldier and followed him outside, together with Stephen, one of my friends here since I was regularly working with him. 

We were running along the road, just outside the base, when I could see them in the distance, some of the soldiers lying on the ground, others checking on their fallen companions, leading the lesser wounded in the army vehicles or securing the area. “The ambushers all left?” I asked, getting nervous since we were now in a part of the street, where some bushes blocked the view to the left and right side, not wanting to have an unpleasant surprise. “We shot nearly all of them, the rest fled towards the mountains, in the opposite direction as our base, as soon as they were seriously outnumbered.” he informed me, easing my mind a bit. I was just about to reply, when an excruciating pain exploded in my left shoulder, caused by a gunshot. I screamed and fell to the ground hard, causing even more pain to sear through my shoulder. 

“Apparently, not all ambushers fled to the mountains”, I thought dimly while darkness threatened to overwhelm me and Stephen called out my name, kneeling by my side. A few more shots sounded around us, the soldier leading us here must be defending us. Stephen pressed something on my wound, while also holding my hand, telling me to be strong. I gasp loudly, trying to be brave and strong, but failing miserably. “So this is what a gunshot feels like”, I thought weekly, feeling guilty to be laying here on the ground being wounded, instead of treating the other wounded soldiers, like I should. 

I was now shaking violently. Sweat formed on my skin, as the adrenaline pumping through my veins was decreasing. There was some hustle around me, but I was already slipping in and out of consciousness, too tired and exhausted to keep myself awake much longer. The last crushing things I thought, before I blacked out was: “Who will treat all the wounded soldiers now? One doctor is not enough! It will be my guilt, when they are dying..”, followed closely by “God, please let me live!” Then, the darkness consumed me.


	4. Back to London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens, when John comes back to london after three years in Afghanistan.

Three years after John moved to Afghanistan, John has returned to London, much sooner than expected. He was dismissed honourably, due to his injury, and got therapy sessions to help him adjust to the civilian live again. They didn´t seem to help much, though. His therapist told him to write a blog about everything that happens to him. Well, the two weeks since he was here, nothing at all happened, so he hadn´t wrote a word yet, although he tried. But honestly, who would want to read about his morning procedure or what he eat last lunchtime or about his boring walks to the park? It was totally pointless… At least, his shoulder injury was healing well, although leaving an ugly scar. What was bothering him more was the nasty limp he developed in his right leg – probably psychosomatic, as his therapist thinks. He even needed a cane, and he hated it.

The weather in London was horrible since he was there, mostly raining and quite cold. Not really that cold, but could enough to shiver in his thin jacked and catching a cold. He really should buy new stuff like warmer clothing, as well as look for something better to live in, instead of his cheap place. Mike Stanford had moved in with someone else, so his old flat was out of option. Not that he really wanted do live with him again, anyway. He was a nice guy, but honestly a little annoying at times, also he would often talk endlessly about random boring stuff. So he had to look for something different. But the army pension wasn´t enough to afford a better place, not while he got no job and he had to be very thrifty at the moment. Well, maybe a flat-share would do, but honestly, who would want him as a flat mate? With these dark thoughts, he walked to the nearest pharmacy, getting something to treat his nasty cold. As soon as he got out, it started raining again. Just brilliant, John thought, while walking the way back, saving the money he would have used for a cab if he wasn´t so low on money.

The next day, his cold was even worse and John was feeling horrible. But he really needed to go to the supermarket, his tee was running low and the milk was empty. He should have gone there yesterday, but well, damn the bloody cold. It wasn´t fun to go shopping with a limp, even less with a nasty headache. After he packed everything in bags, he left the supermarket and tried to get a cab, having no intention to walk back with a lot of stuff to carry. As always, he seemed to be invisible to the taxi drivers, no matter how much he winked. John huffed in frustration and started to walk, or better limp, to the next intersection, hoping that his luck would be better there. At least it wasn´t raining for now.  
As he walked, something in the crowd of people caught his eye. Curly, black hair. Could this be..? John quickened his pace, as fast as his limp allowed him to, eager to see more. Now he was nearly positive. Yes, the tall and thin stature, sharp cheekbones, it could only be him. 

But even as he was nearing him slowly, Sherlock stopped and winked carelessly towards a cab, which instantly stopped for him, of course no one would miss his impressive figure. John huffed ones more, cursing his shortness and, really, anything else. He was sooo looking forward to his next therapy session.


	5. Family meeting

Some more weeks went by and John started to work at a medical centre. He was over qualified for the job, but it was all he was able to get in London at the moment. Plus, he befriended a nice women there, Dr. Sarah Sawyer. They flirted now and then, but it was never serious, just friendly bickering. She was just the friend he desperately needed, feeling so alone since being back in the country, someone to talk to. And he could indeed talk with her about many different things for hours on end, if he had the time. It was nice to have at least one friend, even if it was completely platonic.

He just didn´t want to leave the city, he know it was stupid, but he liked London with all his noises and crowds of people and the pulse of the city. Plus he might have still have some completely stupid and hopelessly tragic crush on a certain person. Yep, after all the time he had to think about it, John was pretty sure now about the attraction he felt towards the half-stranger. He apparently was bi, so what. There were really more dramatic matters on earth than his sexuality.

John was still living in the same shitty place and hoped to find something better soon. Maybe, when he saved some money from his new job, he would be able to afford a nice little flat… But for now, it was all just daydreaming. 

The year was nearing its end. Today, he got an invitation from his parents in Chelmsford. They even called him, making sure he intended to come. They were overjoyed that he was back in the country (well, his mother was), although they weren´t of course happy about his injury. Grudgingly, John said yes, since he couldn´t think of any excuse, having no close friends in London or anywhere near to go to. His at the moment closest friend, Sarah, was spending Christmas with her new date, Michael. John was fine with that, he didn´t want to give the appearance of being interested in her in that way. 

His second close friend was Stephen, but he was still in Afghanistan. He really hoped that he was doing well, John had not heard anything from Stephen since he left there. Maybe, he should write him a letter or something. Better than writing his bloody blog anyway.

Well, now was Saturday and he got to look for presents for Christmas for his parents and Harry. He wasn´t happy to get together with her at Christmas, he still held a small grudge towards her. And he didn´t even wanted to think about his dad. He only cared to come because of his mother, who was a nice and deeply caring woman. She was the one from whom he got all his character traits (or so he hoped), as well as the main part of his appearance, since she was quite short, thin and had sandy hair, while his dad tall, more hefty and muscular, but with a noticeable beer belly, and got dark brown hair.

After he got presents for all of them and was back in his plain one-bedroom apartment, he made tea and then opened his laptop to write some shitty sentences about “what happened to him”, so that he could tell his therapist in his next session, that he did write something (he hoped she wouldn´t want to hear the details, though). 

 

A few days later, he arrived at the train station which was just a couple of minutes away from his parent´s house. Old memories came to his mind, as he finally walked up the street, which looked still the same as the last time he visited and the visits before that. He ignored the bad feeling in his gut and ringed the bell. In no time, his sister Harry opened the door and greeted him a bit too enthusiastically “Jaaaawn! Glad you are back! How´s it going in London?” and hugged him happily. He replied, smiling half-heartedly “Yeah, well, hmm, quite alright. I work at a medical centre now. And you? Still together with Clara?” “Nooo, we had kind of a big fight on Monday. We broke up,” She added, her smile faltering a little. “Oh, big fight number what? The fifth?” John said teasingly, while they entered the living room, where his dad Harold was hanging up Christmas decorations. “Pfffff,” was all the response he got from his sister, who seemed to be slightly pissed, by the look she gave him. Well, John just couldn´t not tease her, the way she was always getting in trouble with anyone because of her antics was just too hilarious.

Harold turned around, when he heard them enter the room. “John,” he greeted him, looking him up and down, as if trying to find something that he could disapprove off. “´bout time you show yourself up around here, huh?” “Always so very charming,” John thought and gave him his well-trained fake smile (the one reserved in particular for his father). “Yes dad, as you know, I´m just back in the country,” he replied, trying to stay calm and unintentionally straightening some more. Well, you weren´t very good at your job, were you, being there only what, two years? I thought, you would at least make it to the five year mark, since you´re not even a soldier but just an army doctor, but you disappointed me, son!” Harold snarled, rudely turning his back towards me and continuing to fix the merrily blinking LED-string on the wall. John took a deep breath to compose himself, thinking “My god, he´s getting on my nerves already, after not even five bloody minutes I´m in here!” What should he reply to this insults? “It was three years and it wasn´t my fault that I was injured, it was a bloody ambush, there was no way to see it coming,” John finally said after a slight pause, clenching his hands. “You should´ve better watched your back,” was his father´s harsh reply. 

Gladly, Joanna, his mother, choose this moment to disrupt their pleasant little communication und greeted John warmly, engulfing him in a motherly hug. She brought an air of Christmas bakery with her, clearly she made her famous vanilla crescents cookies, traditional German Christmas Cookies, which she made every year since she once visited Germany and fell in love with them. Not much later, they were all sitting around the big table in the living room, drinking tea with milk and eating some of the cookies with it. The conversation wasn´t so bad, mostly Joanna talked and questioned John and Harry a lot, how they were doing and so on. She didn´t asked much about Afghanistan, as she could sense that John wasn´t really comfortably with talking about it. Just some questions about the working experience and the living conditions there, which John could answer easily.  
The rest of the day went by with going to the Christmas serving in the nearby church, seeing some old neighbours, eating dinner and later sitting together with wine, or beer, in Harold´s case, and some more cookies, making conversation. Harold was mostly just sitting there and listening, drinking his beer but didn´t interfere much, to everyone´s relief. If only the next day would be just like this, then this Christmas would be half as bad, as John expected it to be. If only… 

The next morning, the family eat a breakfast – scones with marmalade and clotted cream – before everyone was exchanging their Christmas presents. Harry got a book, a collection of chocolates and pralines (she was crazy about chocolate), and socks (from mum, of course). Mr and Mrs Watson got tickets for theatre, a good bottle of wine for Joanna and a new tie for Harold. And John got a new jumper in navy and white with two reindeers on it (yeah, from mum), a chocolate liqueur (he was surprised that Harry didn´t drink it herself, but, well, maybe she did and just bought more than one liqueur bottle), his favourite tea and a mug with the quote “trust me, I´m a doctor”.

 

It was lunchtime, when the family idyll began to go awry. The table was loaded with a traditional Christmas meal with roast turkey and vegetables. As the conversation turned somehow towards relationships (Harold praising the importance of a good and “healthy” marriage), John was getting slightly nervous. His father mustn´t know that he wasn´t exactly straight. He was already pissed off because of Harriet being lesbian; it would be a catastrophe if he found out that John wasn´t straight. 

“What ´bout you John, found a nice girl yet?” his dad asked in this moment, as if sensing his anxiousness. “Nah, I´m still looking”, was John’s short answer. There was an awkward pause, where Harold watched him closely. He was just about to give a nasty remark, when suddenly John´s phone rang. “Sorry”, John hastily rejected the call, not wanting to be rude and phone while they were eating Christmas dinner. But a few seconds later, it started ringing again. The same procedure repeated itself and it was ringing a third time. “Now, just get it, and tell theses morons to quit calling!” John´s dad was complaining. “Yeah, sorry,” John mumbled annoyed, and answered his phone. But before he even could say “hello”, a deep voice, which instantly reminded him of someone, was saying “Are you still searching for a flatmate?” “Sorry, what?” John was slightly taken aback – he did insert a small anonymous announcement in the papers some days ago (just with his phone number as contact, without a name), that he was looking for a cheap apartment in London, but he didn´t wrote about wanting a flatmate. “Are. You. Still. Searching. For. A. Flatmate?” the deep voice repeated, sounding clearly annoyed. “Well, you could say so, I mean, I was looking for an apartment, yes, but I would be ok with a flatmate, too. If the place is nice, of course and if the price is affordable,” he stuttered, frowning, while trying to guess of whom that voice was reminding him. “It is,” was the short answer. “So, you are good with having me as a flatmate?” the man wanted to know. Again, John was taken by surprise with the quick assumptions of his phone caller. “Yes, I would be happy with having you as a flatmate – if we would know each other. But I don´t even know your name, in fact, I know nothing about you” he added. 

Opposite of him, Harold was looking quite grim now, he surely did not approve of his son, sharing a flat with a stranger. 

“The name´s Sherlock Holmes, I´m a consulting detective and sometimes, I don´t speak for days. Oh, and I play the violin. Flatmates should know the worst from each other. As about you, obviously you spend Christmas with your family and I´ve just interrupted Christmas dinner. You live in London and you have little money, hence searching for a cheaper living place. Plus, you aren´t in a relationship at the moment.” “You´re Sherlock Holmes?” John half-shouted, momentarily overcome by his emotions, before realising, what he just heard, apart from Sherlock´s name. “H-how do know all of this,” he asked completely astonished, again speaking before thinking about it. 

Meanwhile, Harold was looking even grimmer now – he definitely did not approve of his son, living together with another man, always fearing that John would show signs of gayness. 

“Apparently, you´re not very clever, as it is all very obvious,” Sherlock said, sounding amused, or maybe he was just inwardly laughing at John´s stupidity. “Really, how could you know?” John urged him to answer. A sight was heard over the phone. “You rejected this call twice, meaning you were occupied. Not from work, since it´s Christmas, so family or friends. If you were alone, you would have answered the phone sooner or just muted it, but that you did pick it up only after three times calling shows that someone must have been annoyed by it, urging you to pick it up. Judging by the barely audible multiple clashing noises in the background, you are in the company of several people, so family it is. Clashing noises mean eating, daytime and date clearly say Christmas dinner. It´s also obvious, that you are not in a relationship, unless it's a long distance, since then you wouldn´t look for an apartment alone, you would either live with your partner or look for an apartment together. Finally, your London dialect indicates you grew up or spent a big part of your live in the city or very near. That you currently live in London – well that one was a guess, but a good one, given the statistical probability. And that you are searching for an apartment directly in the city, not in the suburbs, despite the higher prices, shows that you are sentimentally attached to London, which also made it more plausible that you indeed come from London.” 

“Wow,” John mumbled in a quiet voice. “What was that?” Sherlock asked. “That was fantastic! Absolutely amazing!” John spoke out loudly with a huge grin; his blue eyes gleamed with sparks of excitement and happiness. He even momentarily forgot about his homophobic dad, his notorious curious sister and his worried mum and focused only on Sherlock´s deep baritone voice. Only when his dad made a move to grab his phone did he come back to reality and hastily ended the phone call, promising Sherlock to call him back soon to make an appointment to look at the flat together.


	6. The brave and the furious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John´s Father reacting to Sherlock´s phone call.

"What was that?" Harold demanded to know as soon as John quit the call, in a strange resemblance of Sherlock's earlier question, but in a much harsher voice.  
"Well, seems like I just found another living option – someone wants to share a flat", he answered nonchalantly. "It was a guy! You are a Watson, you can't just go and live with some stranger, much less with a guy! Do you have no decency at all? You will not go and ruin our family's reputation! I forbid it!" Harold nearly screamed, while his head turned from white to a frightening red and the vein on his temple throbbed - a sign of his growing rage.

"Oh, my... I will go and make us all some nice tea to calm down the nerves, right?" Joanna quickly stood up and disappeared in the kitchen. Drinking tea was her answer to everything. Meanwhile Harry was watching John and Harold closely – she will now definitely want to ask John if he finally admits being gay, which she always assumed since their teenage hood (just because John never had a relationship which lasted longer than a few weeks). John could clearly imaging her saying "I told you so!" in his head.

John, after making sure that his mother was in the kitchen and out of hearing range, stood up and turned towards Harold with a deep frown. "You know what, dad?", he said in a controlled voice, emphasizing the word "dad", "I'm not a little kid anymore which you can command around and beat up if it does not do as you say. I'm totally able to do my own decisions and if I want to share a flat with a men, then I will do so, no matter if you like it or not." Harold stood up too and glared at his son with a deadly stare, but John was no longer frightened by him, he was just pretty angry. His fighting skills weren't that bad after all – what he lacked in height and pure muscle, he made up for with his fighting skills he had acquired in Afghanistan and in the trainings before. "You will leave this house, now! And don't you ever dare to come here again," Harold barked, leaving his place at the table and nearing John, hovering over him threateningly, as he was at least a head taller than John. "Dad, don't do this!" Harry chimed in, now getting slightly worried about the whole affair. "Do not interfere!" Harold glanced aside briefly. Meanwhile, John didn't back off, but stood straight and never left Harold out of his eyes for a second. But he also knew that this could escalade quickly (if it didn't already) and tried to think of a way to leave quietly without looking like a total looser or making a huge scene.

Gladly, in this moment, Joanna returned from the kitchen and almost dropped the tea tray when she saw the two men glaring at each other angrily. She put down the tea trey with trembling fingers and tried to rescue the situation with the announcement of her favorite drink, tea. "My dears, the tea is ready, please sit down and let us drink it together before it gets cold," she pleaded nervously. "John just wanted to go," Harold announced. "Oh, but sure he could stay a little longer? At least till after supper?" Joanna asked John, not really knowing what else to say. John made a reassuring gesture towards his mother, trying to assure her that everything was alright. "No, no, I actually have some things to do. I will leave you to your tea and call you later, ok, mum? Thanks for the Christmas dinner and everything, but I really have to go now. I just have to get my things from upstairs first," he said. He hugged his mum and Harry fleetingly, shot one last warning glance towards his dad, grabbed his cane and went to catch his stuff. When he returned and was limping towards the front door (faster than before, his rage or maybe the adrenaline seemed to somewhat help with his limp), he heard mum pleading Harold to at least drive John to the train station. John assumed that Harold would reject mum's pleading, but to his surprise, he didn't. "Come on boy," he snarled at John, seemingly a bit calmer than before, even keeping the door open for him, but John knew him too well to let his guard down now.

The short drive towards the train station was silent. That was, until John's father suddenly stopped the car in a small side street, which was lined by a concrete wall. "Get out," Harold barked at John, leaving the car already and walking around the car. John hastily took his small traveling bag and cane. He then left the car on his side, the bad feeling in his gut returning full on now. He was barely being outside the car, when his dad grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and slammed his head hard against the wall, causing him to see stars, while his cane fell to the ground, out of his reach.

"Ouuch, shit!" thought John with his head hurting badly, being startled by the fast attack. He didn't thought his dad would turn to such treacherous methods so quickly, but maybe he was afraid of a fair attack, now that John had been in Afghanistan and had seen a lot of fighting. John tried to get off the wall and in a better position, but Harold used John's dizziness, as well as his stronger build to his advantage and got a few good blows in. He hit John's stomach and ribcage multiple times (John was sure that at least one or two of his ribs were partially fractured or even broken by the feeling) and also landed a mean blow on his cheek and nose, which caused his nose to bleed. Eventually, John blocked and returned the blows, since his trying to escape was to no avail. But he was already at a disadvantage, because of his state and the concrete wall behind his back and his energy was slowly dwindling. He was mostly trying to block Harold's blows now, as his defence was very strong. Another blow hit his forehead, which was now spinning maddeningly. "Now you are getting, what you deserve!" Harold hurled at John, continuing his beatings.

John was getting really scared now – if his dad wouldn't stop soon, he could beat him to death sooner or later. He tried to get him to reason, knowing from experience that it wouldn't really work, but maybe he could distract him enough to somehow escape him. "Do you want to kill your own son?" he slurred, his speech being affected by his head injuries. "You aren't my son any longer," his dad answered not impressed, not even slowing in his attack. He was now gripping John's wrist, bending it painfully. A bit more and it would break, John knew, having experienced this once before. Sweat was running down his temple. If he could get his cane and use it as a weapon, he might still have a chance, but it was too far away, he couldn't even reach it with his feet to draw it nearer.

"What's going on here?" a men suddenly called in a stern voice from somewhere behind them. Harold flinched and released his hard grip on John, who instantly sagged towards the ground, panting heavily with exhaustion. "None of your business," he grunted angrily, turning around to face whoever dared to disturb him. "Leave right off, or I'll call the police!" the big man said, standing beside a more frightened, but also stern looking woman, a few metres away from John and Harold, a phone in his hand. After a few seconds of dreadful silence, Harold grudgingly retreated to his car, entering it and slammed the door shut. He then drove away, stepping hard on the gas pedal.

The pair now came towards John, the men kneeling down in front of him and looking him over. "Are you ok? Should we call an ambulance? Or the police?" he asked him worriedly. "No, please don't," John mumbled, "I'm a doctor I know how to treat myself." The men stood up again and looked down on him uncertainly. "Are you sure? You look pretty awful, to be honest," he said. "Just help me up, I need to get the next train to London." John was determined to get away from this town and never return again. After some more worried glances, the men eventually helped John up, who then carefully reached for his cane, which the women got for him. The pair insisted on accompanying him to his destination, to make sure he didn't break together on the way. John reluctantly agreed. He pulled himself together (he swayed slightly, though) and they made their very slow and – in John's case – very painful way towards the near train station. His head was about killing him by the time they were there (why was it always his head?), but he kept his facial expression neutral and thanked the couple for their help. They winked him, watching him get on the train. John sagged together in the nearest seat, his last energy gone. Before the train left the station, he was out cold. He just hoped that someone would wake him up before London.


	7. The next call

Somehow, John had made it to his chambers the last evening, even if he could barely remember how. This morning, as he woke up, all his limbs felt heavy and his whole body was acing. The sun was shining through the window, indicating it was later then he usually woke up, already nearing midday. As he was sitting up in his bed, his ribs hurt sharply with every breath and every movement of his torso sent ripples of pain trough him. He stood up and stumbled arduously to his small bathroom to go through with his morning routine, nearly falling over his cane, which was lying on the floor instead of leaning against his writing desk as usual. 

Luckily, he had the rest of the week free, so he could save himself the trouble to going to a doctor right away, as he was in no condition to work. Instead, after breakfast and tea, which was rather sparse today as he wasn´t in the mood to eat much, he thought about calling Sherlock for more information about this flat he wanted to share. Normally, he wouldn´t call people on Christmas days, but well, Sherlock himself called him yesterday in the middle of Christmas dinner, so what. 

****

Sherlock had been thinking about what he found out about the man he called yesterday. From his research, he knew already that his name was John Watson (this fool put his phone number and his picture on a dating website, on which he also had a link to his blog, so that everyone could find out his name and job really easily), a (according to his blog) just lately honourably released army doctor. This information peaked his interest enough to call him initially. He could also, because of his slightly familiar picture and spoke pattern, easily assign him to be the short guy, which he and Lestrade met a few years back on a case. He kept everything related to cases in his mind palace even seemingly random encounters, so it wasn´t that hard to make the connection after spending a short time in his mind palace to find out where he had seen him before. Also, judging by the way John seemed surprised by hearing his name, he must´ve recognised him, too. He must´ve made a lasting impression on him to be remembered, which surprised him a bit, given that people normally seemed to forget so much so quickly. Maybe this John Watson wasn´t as dumb as most people. He would have to observe him further to prove that, when they would meet at Baker Street. For now, he just waited for him to call back, which he hoped would be soon as it was extraordinarily boring these days since there wasn´t a good enough case to be solved at the moment. 

Yesterday, he had been visiting their parents for Christmas – Sherlock rather reluctantly being dragged there by his annoying brother Mycroft. He did really well until Christmas dinner. By then he had been so bored out of his mind, that he just left the room in the middle of the oh so joyful Christmas dinner and stormed up to his old room, choosing that moment to call John Watson, not caring about the fact that he may interrupt him at a similar family meeting. 

 

At the moment, back in London, he was playing his violin, ready to be called at any minute either from John or Lestrade, in case a new murderer showed up. When the phone rang without showing “G. Lestrade” (Sherlock had forgotten his first name, only remembering it was a dull name beginning with a g, back when he saved him in his phone contacts) on the display, he hastily put his instrument away and answered it by coming right to the point without caring about such a mundane thing like a greeting:   
“We can meet tomorrow at four o´clock at 221B Baker Street, John.” “Huh. How did you know my name and that it was me calling?” John sounded surprised, once again. “I did my research,” Sherlock replied, “you really shouldn´t put your phone number on a dating website along with a link to your blog anyone could find out your name instantly.” “Oh. I guess you´re right.” John sounded slightly embarrassed. “Of course I am right. You got the address?” I made sure since most people had the devastatingly annoying habit to forget instantly what you have told them, if they don´t write it up immediately. “221 Baker Street, wasn´t it?” John asked. “221B,” Sherlock replied, before quitting the call. He then went back to his violin, filling the air with haunting tones, building a restless melody.

****

The rest of the day John spent mostly lying around, trying to heal. At least the pain was more bearable now, after he had taken a good measure of pain medicine this morning and a second dose after a very meagre lunch, consisting of an apple and tea. But every time when he thought about tomorrow, a dread overcame him. He looked horrible. All those bruises in his face and all over his body, as well as a remarkable black eye made him look pitiful, but John Watson didn´t want to be pitied. But, from what little he know about Sherlock, he probably wouldn´t care anyway, so why was he so freaking nervous? It wasn´t like this was a date or something; they were just going to look at this flat. What if he was so nervous tomorrow that he was speechless or talking nonsense? He doesn´t want Mr Holmes to think he was an idiot. Well, in comparison to his amazing mind, he´s most definitely an idiot. But he doesn´t want to be the most stupid idiot of a multitude of idiots. And his looks certainly wouldn´t help either. 

His thoughts were going in circles now, great. Maybe because of the strong pain med he took, which were clouding his mind, making him feel like a brainless guy trying to solve a riddle. Yeah, hopefully he was just over dramatizing things. What he usually never did. “Shut up!” he hissed out in annoyance, grapping his head in his hands, frustrated of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in wattpad, where I put this story first (under my username Johnlocked_writer), this chapter is actually two chapters. So the last two paragraphs (beginning with "The rest of the day..") was originally a chapter for itself, called "It´s just a flat, not a date". Why do I tell you this? Well, I just thought that you may like to hear what the chapter title was, as it describes John´s (gay-)panicking thoughts quite fittingly in my opinion ;).


	8. 221B Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John comes to 221B Baker Street for the first time and gets to know Mrs Hudson.

It was nearly time for Sherlock to go to Baker Street and he quickly checked himself in the bathroom mirror, combing his hair to look decent. Sherlock already had all his stuff in the flat, so he didn´t needed to take anything with him except his purse for paying the cab driver. When he eventually stood on the street, it didn´t take long for a cab to pull over in front of him. 

As Sherlock left the cab, he saw John from behind, standing at the door of 221B Baker Street. He stood there rather stiffly, as if he was in some pain, judging from his position and the way he carefully lifted his left arm to reach up for the doorknocker. His right arm was meanwhile holding lightly on a cane, meaning he had a leg injury of some kind, probably from his serving in Afghanistan. He was holding the cane routinely but stood there military like, holding himself upright despite the pain he was obviously in, barely adding weight on his cane as if he just forgot it was being there. That was remarkable since while the cab drove by, Sherlock had seen that his limp was pretty bad. So it had to be at least partly psychosomatic. He stored the new information safely away in his mind palace, along with a mind note to test his theory (that this limp, if in deed purely solely psychosomatic could be cured with the right actions he had yet to think about) later, to make sure the limp wouldn´t be permanent and therefore a hindrance in the future in case he needed John to help him with some legwork, as Mycroft would call it.

Sherlock stepped further towards him and called out “Hello”, causing him to turn around slowly and kind of awkwardly. 

Seeing John´s otherwise handsome, but badly bruised face with a remarkable black eye, Sherlock felt a small pang of an unpleasant feeling in his stomach, almost like pain. What was that feeling? It was unfamiliar to Sherlock, hitting him unprepared. But as soon as he felt it, it was already gone, too short to really examine it. Anyway, the bruises were explaining John´s stiff movements. They were most likely not only on his face, but also covering the most of his upper body and maybe some more beyond that. 

Sherlock quickly deduced that these injuries were hardly two days old, obviously not long from after his Christmas dinner call. Since the probability for a stranger to start a random fight on a Christmas day was rather small, while it was high season for family quarrels, someone must have been enraged by their conversation, probably someone from his family. Most likely a male family member, since women seldom tended to use pure violence. Given the course of the conversation and the possible reasons for this rage, the most likely being homophobia (since they surely must´ve heard that it was about sharing a flat with another men), as well as what he saw from his injuries, they were caused by his father. It made Sherlock almost feel guilty. Almost.

“Mr Holmes,” John said greeting, smiling slightly. “Oh please. Call me Sherlock,” curly-hairs in his elegant long coat answered. “No need to be formal,” he added, smiling crookedly and holding out a pale, elegant hand for John, of course not without the intent of deducing his hands. “John Watson. As you already know,” John said awkwardly, shaking Sherlock´s hand tenderly, while the latter noticed him wincing slightly when he shook his hand, as if the movement would hurt him. No wonder, as it was the very hand which his father had bent hurtfully almost to the breaking point just two days before, but Sherlock didn´t know this, of course. He noticed the short wincing however, and by looking down shortly saw a slight and only partly visible, hand-shaped red discoloration around John´s wrist. The strange painful feeling returned for just a second, but Sherlock kept on his usual neutral expression and further noticed that John´s skin was tanned, but not above the wrist, which was all he already assumed, since John had been in Afghanistan as an army doctor. John, meanwhile, seemed to be relieved that Sherlock didn´t comment about his appearance. He made a comment about the prime spot of the flat, obviously fearing the usually high rents around the perimeter. 

“Oh, Mrs Hudson the landlady has given me a special deal. She owns me a favour,” Sherlock shortly told him about the affair, explaining why she made him a very good price because he ensured the landlady’s husband’s death. John didn´t seemed to be shocked, which was a positive sign for Sherlock.

When the hand shaking was done, the door opened and the landlady greeted Sherlock warmly, hugging him. John was slightly surprised to see him hug her back. Then John was introduced to Mrs Hudson, who looked a bit shocked when she saw his condition: “Oh dear boy, what happened to you?” she asked, when she noticed his black eye and the bruises on John´s face. “Oh, it´s nothing, just a, I mean, an accident,” he stuttered, obviously feeling uncomfortable with the question. “Must have been a bad accident, then,” Mrs Hudson muttered, clearly not convinced, letting them inside. Sherlock went up the stairs, taking two steps at once; John followed much slower due to his aching body and limp. Upstairs, Sherlock opened the door energetically and waited for John to enter first.

He limped into it curiously, taking in the sight of the insanely messy flat. Sherlock was meanwhile eyeing him, probably waiting to hear his opinion on the flat. “Nice,” John said. “Very nice indeed,” Sherlock looked thrilled when he heard that, saying “my thoughts, precisely,” but John wasn´t finished yet: “..if you clean it up a bit.” he added, while Sherlock was rambling about how he also found it very nice and so on. Sherlock looked back at him almost shocked with somewhat of a pouty face, picking up a random piece of all the stuff laying around and setting it down elsewhere, while hastily trying to reassure John that he could “straighten things out. A bit.” John hid a smile while grabbing a pillow and making himself comfortable, sitting down in an armchair. Sherlock, who was so extraordinarily talented and intelligent, reminded him of a teenage boy in this moment. And he just got a feeling that this wasn´t the only situation where Sherlock would be considered a bit odd. But somehow, John found it adorable. And he didn´t really mind the chaos, although or even because it was the completely opposite to his military sense of order. He just felt like he needed a change, a fresh start after his failed army doctor career and Sherlock would most definitely be providing him with more than one change. John just hoped he wouldn´t get tired of him sooner or later. 

Meanwhile, Mrs Hudson shuffled around in the background asking John on his opinion about the flat and telling him there´s another bedroom upstairs, if they would need two bedrooms. “Of course we´ll be needing two,” John said hastily, slightly gay-panicking. But Mrs Hudson seemed to see right through him, telling him about a Mrs Turner next door, “having married ones”. John tried to conceal his minor blush, while Mrs Hudson luckily turned her attention towards Sherlock, scalding him about the mess he made.


	9. Blushing and misfortunes

The rest of the evening after Mrs Hudson had left the flat, was rather uneventful. Sherlock, after taking another good look on John, told him to make himself comfortable, while he would put away his belongings, still mostly lying inside various boxes all around the flat. Not that he didn´t do that already, he had felt at home instantly, plus he really needed to rest his exhausted body, so he had settled in that nice armchair, resting his sore legs and trying not to move his chest to much (damn that ribs). 

John wanted to help Sherlock, but it would do no good to his condition, not while his injuries were still quite bad and only somewhat healed or starting to heal. So while Sherlock was sorting out his things, John was trying to start a conversation, wanting to find out more about Sherlock anyway. “So, you are a consulting detective?” John said, watching Sherlock pinning a stash of papers with a knife on the mantelpiece, besides a skull. “Yes, as I told you already,” Sherlock answered curtly, turning around to grab the next object in the box to his feet. “So what does that mean exactly?” John wanted to know. “It means, whenever the police is too dumb to solve a case, which is nearly always, they are asking me for help. If it´s interesting enough, I come around looking at the crime scene and solve it for them.” “Hmm,” John made a sound of approval, looking slightly amused. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, stating “You aren´t surprised.” John sighted, knowing it was time to let the cat out of the bag. “Well no, I´m not. Honestly, I remember you saying something just like that, but it was during a chance meeting ´bout three years ago, you probably don´t remember it. It was shortly before I went to Afghanistan.”   
"You mean after you bumped into that small time criminal with the stolen data chip?” Sherlock said, still watching John and momentarily pausing in his cleaning up. “Yes,” John confirmed, licking his dry lips and looking down nervously. He really had hoped that Sherlock would have forgotten that embarrassing encounter, especially the part where he messed up by turning their chase into a hostage situation, but obviously he didn´t. 

“Normally people don´t remember random encounters three years back, much less any conversations following them, but then again most don´t get threatened by someone with a knife, either. Must have been a shocking situation for you, then,” Sherlock assumed in his calm, emotionless but nonetheless very attractive deep voice, speaking more to himself then to John. 

“Damn, that voice..” John involuntarily thought, losing his focus a bit. “It wasn´t so bad,” he therefore said next without properly thinking, or rather only thinking about the positive outcome (him stumbling in Sherlock’s arms, what a sweet memory), but not about what Sherlock might deduce from his answer. As soon as he realised his mistake, he blushed a little, still looking down. “Interesting,” was all Sherlock stated, tilting his head to the side a little, before resuming his work.

“Damn, that was close. Another thing like that and Sherlock will know that you´re falling for him head over heels,” thought John while desperately trying to calm himself and get rid of that embarrassing blush. “If he doesn´t already,” a blunt and not at all helpful voice in his head added.

Luckily, Sherlock was turned away from him now, placing stuff in a shelf cabinet unaware of the deepening of Johns blush. He continued working in silence, lifting a few heavier objects now and thus giving John the opportunity to watch the sexy play of his arm muscles from behind. 

A little later, Mrs Hudson came in again, bringing them tea and biscuits. John took his cup and plate happily, relieved to have something to distract him from the beautiful sight not far away from him. It was just getting too awkward to sit around and doing nothing but watching Sherlock. Mrs Hudson was visibly very thrilled about Sherlock for cleaning up and being considerate of John, like it was something completely uncommon for him. She chattered happily, setting down the rest of the biscuits and Sherlock´s cup of tea – “with two spoons of sugar, just how you like it!” – on a table near him. 

“So, will you be taking the room upstairs?” Mrs Hudson asked John. “Yes he will.” Sherlock answered for him. “Oh that´s great! How lovely!” the landlady exclaimed. John smiled warmly at her, very relieved that Sherlock still wanted him as a flatmate and didn´t changed his mind. 

Later, John left for the night, promising to return tomorrow to properly move in with his stuff. 

****

The next day, John arrived in 221B again with a big suitcase containing all of his belongings. He had taken a cab, wisely avoiding any too hard work yet, to spare his injuries from aggravation as they would need at least another few days to heal (especially the ribs would need one or two weeks to stop hurting so much and another four to six weeks to heal fully). Mrs Hudson let him in, shouting for Sherlock to help him with the suitcase, which the latter reluctantly did, but not without complaining about his experiment being interrupted and looking extremely annoyed once again.

Not much later, John was standing in the kitchen corner, making tea for him and Sherlock while his cane was resting against the wall nearby. Meanwhile Sherlock was looking through a microscope, not bothering to answer any of John´s attempts of small talk, seemingly in a mood, since John dared to disrupt his experiment earlier by arriving at the wrong time. John didn´t mind to much, he had warned him he sometimes wouldn´t talk for days, after all, so far he just had been lucky. 

After he had prepared the teas, remembering the way Sherlock liked his, he put them on a tray (for easier balance) and made his way towards Sherlock to bring him his tea, without bothering to use his cane since it was only a short way. Unfortunately, he overlooked a stray object lying on the floor, looking alarmingly like an eyeball, causing him to stumble. Normally, he would have been able to regain his balance, but not in his still weakened condition and therefore somewhat slower reaction. Instead, the misfortune took its course. 

He flailed wildly with his arms, his ribs protesting strongly against the movement, causing the tea tray to fall out of his hands and hit the ground with a loud shattering noise, tea pods breaking and spilling tea everywhere. His body followed right on, crashing on top of the tray with a rather nasty sound, in a way that sent massive pain waves through his poor battered chest, making him cry out in pain with the little remaining air inside his lungs. He instinctively curled himself into a ball, cutting his hands on the broken ceramics pieces in the process, without even noticing. “Damn it, damn it, damn it,” he thought, “now I´ve some broken ribs for sure!” His whole body shivered from the pain centred in his chest. 

****

As Sherlock heard the loud shattering noise, he was torn out once more from his experiment, just to watch John crashing on the ground, breaking a rib or more in the process, judging by his cry and reaction. He jumped out of his chair faster than he ever had, losing no time in fetching his phone from the table and calling an ambulance while running the few steps to John, kneeling down beside him. “John! John, are you alright?” he asked him, emotions coloured his higher than normal voice for the first time since he met John. He then saw the bloodied tea cup pieces and warily removed them, putting them safely away to the side, before carefully removing the tray, which was partly hidden under John. John gasped and trembled, obviously in agonising pain. “Don´t worry, ambulance´s on the way!” Sherlock tried to reassure John as well as himself, placing a hand calmingly on his shoulder and keeping it there, since John trembling seemed to lessen a bit with the contact. 

To Sherlock’s shock, his own hands were trembling a bit, too. He couldn´t remember the last time something shocked him that much and this honestly frightened him. Why did he react so strongly? He had seen injured people in pain before, many, some in horrible conditions, but no one ever had that impact on him. Not since Redbeard at least... He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the situation at hand.

John meanwhile was still in great agony, but when he felt Sherlock gripping his shoulder, it calmed him, if only psychologically. As they both waited for the ambulance to arrive, he concentrated all of his focus purely on the gentle and warm touch of Sherlock´s hand and it helped him a great deal to not notice the pain so much anymore.


	10. At the A & E

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The extension of John´s injuries are revealed and Sherlock impresses John ones more.

When the ambulance arrived, Sherlock insisted to come with them as the paramedics carefully led a trembling John to the ambulance car. He didn´t wanted to let John alone in his weakened state (although he wouldn´t admit this loudly) and also he wanted to see how worse he was injured, since he could only deduce so much with the beige jumper covering John´s skin. 

The paramedics let him drive with them, clearly assuming he was his boyfriend. Sherlock didn´t mind, he just watched closely, as they strapped John on a sketcher.  
At the accident & emergency department a nurse came up to them. The army doctor was still in serious pain, but feeling a little better now, since the strong pain meds he had been given were already beginning to work. After the nurse wrote down his name and asked about his injury and how it happened, filling out a paper, he was lead to the next vacant patient couch and told to sit down and, if possible, undress his upper body until a doctor would come to examine him, which could take a while. The nurse glanced at Sherlock while saying this, indicating for him to help John to take off his jumper, before she hurried away to another patient in need. 

“Can you lift your arms?” Sherlock asked, watching John intensively, although his expression was as emotionless as it always seemed to be. John glanced up to him, nervously licking his lips, and hesitated for a moment, not wanting Sherlock to see the full extent of his injuries. Knowing that he really hadn´t a choice, John reluctantly nodded and lifted his arms, holding back a gasp when the movement caused him more pain. Sherlock removed his jumper with surprisingly careful hands. John involuntarily shivered and gasped lightly the moment those smooth hands made contact with his skin and lifted the fabric over his head. His skin seemed to memorise where Sherlock´s long fingers touched it, since he could feel these spots long afterwards, lightly burning in a good way.

When the clothing was out of the way, John looked to Sherlock again seeing his eyes widen in shock and staring at his chest. John sighted (which he immediately regretted) and risked a short glance downwards, which confirmed that he looked indeed, horrible. His chest, which already had been plastered with a variety of bruises (or haematoma, as he called them when he was in his doctor mode) with colours ranging from red to dark blue, leaving little normal looking skin, was now even more irritated and puffy at the areas where he landed on the tea tray earlier. 

John cleared his throat. “It´s not as bad as it looks,” he said defensively, but that didn´t seem to have any impact on Sherlock, who was still staring. John began to feel uncomfortable under his intense stare, but before he could figure out how to distract Sherlock, a doctor appeared in front of them (much sooner than expected, but apparently it wasn´t as busy as usual in the A & E at the moment), raising his eyebrows when he saw John. “Good morning Dr Watson, I am Dr Bell,” he said, after looking up from the paper on his clip board. They shook hands and John was happy to see a competent looking doctor, who also didn´t miss his doctor title. “Well, I would normally ask what exactly happened, but that seemed to be quite clear in this case. Although it says here “broken ribs, caused by fall”, not “beaten up”. But I assume the fight you got in was prior to the fall, maybe two or three days given by the colour of the bruises?” the doctor asked in a no-nonsense, business like voice. “That´s right”, John said in a low voice and looked down on his shoes for a moment, a bit embarrassed because he displayed it as an “accident” in front of Sherlock yesterday, when Mrs Hudson had been asking (although they clearly didn´t believe it anyway, so what). 

The doctor then began with his examination (after making sure that John was ok with Sherlock remaining with them during the process, which he could hardly reject). First, after taking a close look, he poked his chest in different places, asking each time how strong it hurts on a scale from one to ten as well as whether the ribs where hurting this much before (since after the fight) or only after his fall. Of course most of the spots were hurting from the bruises alone, but when there was just a bruise, it wasn´t hurting nearly as much as in the case of a broken rib. The first broken rib the doctor pocket at (it was the fourth rib), John nearly jumped from the pain. Two other ribs (rib five and seven) were clearly also broken, making him distort his face in pain with each touch, sometimes almost crying out. These two had been partially fractured before, John was pretty sure.  
Next, Dr Bell listened to his lung sounds with a stethoscope checking his breathing and then asking him to say “66” and “99” repeatedly while he placed his instrument at different places on his chest and abdomen. He finally had to move his upper body this way and that (the pain was nearly killing him when he moved his upper body to the right, making him gasp) and stand up, so that the doctor could check his posture.

The result didn´t surprise John the slightest: a serial rib fracture (ribs 4, 5 und 7). Dr Bell finally described him strong pain meds, before making a move to teach him how to treat his injuries. John disrupted him when he begun to advise him to breath normally and not shallow, reminding him that he was a doctor, too, and yes, he also know it would take 4 to 6 weeks for the broken ribs to heal and he wouldn´t overstrain them till then. Of course, the doctor couldn´t be stopped from telling John to come back into the hospital if his condition should worsen. But all in all, Dr Bell seemed to be reassured by his knowledge. 

John thought he was finally free to go, but as soon as he had mastered the ordeal of getting his jumper back on (luckily, again with the help of Sherlock, who had been watching the whole examination closely and now looked a tiny bit relieved, but still somewhat worried), the doctor stopped him by firmly placing a hand on his shoulder. “Dr Watson, I have to ask you one more thing, and please think about it,” he said in a serious voice. “As it is clear that you gained all those hematomas from a rather violent encounter and you don´t seem to be the type to get into a bar fight, I can only assume you got into serious trouble with someone. Really you are lucky that you don´t seem to have internal bleedings. But I have to ask you, who did this to you and I want to strongly advise you to consider to report this person, if you didn´t already?” 

John sighted, this was exactly what he was hoping to not happen. “I´ll think about it,” he said to end this quickly, without really having the intention. “So, you know who did it?” the doctor asked, not quite letting him off the hook. John sighted again, not wanting to answer the question. “It was his father, obviously,” Sherlock stated. John and Dr Bell both turned their heads and looked at him astonished. “How do you know this?” John wondered. “Really John, it wasn´t hard to find out. Given by the fact it happened 3 days ago, not long after I called, when you were with your family and it was Christmas, a time when the most family conflicts and breakups happen, as well as the evidence of a rather large handprint which was visible on your wrist when you came to the flat yesterday, it is quite clear that it was indeed caused by your father.” John thought about that. “But it could´ve been my uncle.” “Oh, come on, you don´t have extended family and if it was your uncle, he would also have been at your Christmas dinner, but the background noises said otherwise,” Sherlock dismissed his objection easily. 

John looked very impressed now, wording his admiration: “That was fantastic.” “Do you realise that you keep saying that aloud?” Sherlock asked amused, raising one of his elegant brows. “Well, it was brilliant, why shouldn´t I say this,” John asked, blinking his eyes, while in the background, Dr Bell shifted from one foot to his other awkwardly, not sure how to disrupt them without being rude (since clearly there was something going on between the two). “Aren´t you used to people admiring your clever deductions?” the sandy blonde inquired. Sherlock snorted. “Not quite.” “So what do they say, then?” John wanted to know. “Piss off!” Sherlock admitted. They looked at each other for a moment, before breaking into a laughing fit. That is, until it turned into a moan on John´s part because of the pain the movement caused him. 

At this point, Dr Bell cleared his throat and they turned serious again, and listened to him making some last statements before dismissing them.

Of course, the moment they stepped in front of the street and Sherlock raised his hand, a cab arrived, but this time, John was happy about it. Only when they were back in Baker street, going up the stairs, did John realise that he didn´t had his cane with him and his leg hadn´t been acting up once since the incident this morning. It seemed like Sherlock´s touch (or was it simply the adrenaline and excitement) had miraculously healed his psychosomatic limp. When they entered the flat and went to sit in their chairs, passing the cane, which was still lying on the floor, Sherlock sent a smug look to John, as if he wanted to say “I knew it was just a psychosomatic limp and I would be able to fix it.”


	11. Healing

Over the next weeks, while John was slowly healing, John and Sherlock got to know each other better.

The first two weeks after the incident, John stayed mostly in the flat (he was on sick leave for four weeks, so he didn´t need to go back to work yet), but made a little walk outside every day, sometimes groggery shopping, sometimes just walking through random streets or visiting nearby parks, when he became bored of sitting in the flat with not much to do. Sherlock meanwhile was solving cases with Scotland Yard, happily describing in detail how he solved them, if asked by John on Sherlock´s return to the flat, while John was making tea for the two of them and they would then both settle into their respective chairs, facing each other. John loved to hear about the cases and to hear more about Sherlock’s deductions, which never ceased to amaze him. And yeah, he really couldn´t keep himself to say “brilliant” or “extraordinary”, loving the way Sherlock seemed to soak in his praise, often causing him to reward John with one of his fleeting smiles.

Now and then Mrs Hudson would come up and bring them tea and biscuits or even pieces of freshly baked cake, homemade bread or other treats. John quickly grew fond of her, she was always asking how his ribs were healing and making sure everything was ok with the two of them, even if she frequently reminded them that she was “not your housekeeper, just your landlady!”

Sherlock still could be irritated easily and sometimes wore his no emotions mask all day. But John wouldn´t ask for it to be different, he was happy as it was and grateful he got to stay with a brilliant mind like Sherlock, not to speak of his attractiveness or his overall fascinating personality. Of course, John still hid his solid attraction towards him as best as he could, even if he was astonished that Sherlock haven´t it figured out yet alone from the amount of occasions he showed tell-tale signs like blushing or constantly licking his lips. It was quite alarming for John, since none of his former relationships (which all had been with women) had made such a huge emotional impact on him. 

John didn´t think he could bear it if Sherlock would be repulsed by him when he finally found out. He feared that he would throw him out of 221B Baker Street, which has become his home the moment he first stepped one foot into it. The thought was constantly nagging at the back of his mind, especially in the long hours when Sherlock was out solving cases and John hoped that his ribs would be better soon, so he could at least go to work again and not feel so useless like nowadays. He tried to make up for it by keeping the flat clean (Sherlock didn´t seem to ever do that, John very quickly found out), doing their shopping and everything else he could do without straining his ribs too much, which were still sore and hurting, but slowly and gradually getting better. 

At some evenings or sometimes even in the middle of the night, Sherlock would play violin and John would listen to him, even more in awe, if that was possible, then when Sherlock rattled off his brilliant deductions. Opposite to what you would suspect, it didn´t bother him at all when he woke up to such beautiful sounds at 3 am in the morning. Well, to be honest, this could also be due to the fact that he could sleep in the next morning. Maybe he would be bothered more as soon as he had to work and rise early again, but somehow John even doubted that. 

On the contrary, in fact it did help him sleep better afterwards, keeping his nightmares at bay. Since John was in Baker Street, the amount of disturbing dreams about Afghanistan he suffered had decreased drastically. And each time John actually did wake from a nightmare nowadays, it was to hear Sherlock playing, which instantly calmed him deeply. The often sweet and soft melodies lured him into a much more peacefully slumber for the rest of the night. In fact, it was such an effective method to bring him back to sleep, that John often wouldn´t even remember it the next morning, or only vaguely.

At other days, normally at crucial points in the cases he was working (as John learned afterwards), Sherlock would go into his mind palace for hours, hands stapled beneath his chin (a sign for John to better not disturb him). On these days, he wouldn’t eat, no matter how much John tried to persuade him, lecturing him of the unhealthy aspect of unregularly eating. Sherlock would either just ignore him, snort at him in annoyance, or, if John was getting too pushy, tell him that digestion slowed him down. 

On one occasion, when John was walking through a park in the second week since the incident, he even met Mike Stanford, his former flatmate from their days at Barts. They settled at a park bench after getting coffee and Mike asked him how he was doing (great, besides healing from a couple of broken ribs). He also wanted to know if he was back in England for good or would return to Afghanistan soon (back for good, but it´s fine, really). 

After they finished their coffee, Mike was happy to show him around at Barts when John wondered if it changed much since their days. As they came to a stop in front of a lab, Mike seemed to hesitate for a moment, before saying “I should warn you, in there´s Sherlock Holmes, an intelligent guy, but he tends to be a bit..” Mike seemed to struggle for words. “A tad bit not good?” John chimed in amused. Of course, Mike didn´t knew that John was acquainted to Sherlock already. This would be fun. “Yes, that´s exactly what I was trying to say!” Mike said impressed. “He can be quite difficult if you aren´t used to him. Well also if you are, I dare say.” He admitted, shrugging his shoulders, before opening the door. 

They entered the lab to see not only Sherlock, standing in front of an microscope, but also a young woman in a white lab coat, who was just handing a coffee to Sherlock with a nervous smile on her pink lips. The latter hardly looked at her, just grabbing the coffee and winking her away with a regardless gesture. The shy looking woman hesitated, clearly still wanting to say something to him. She then noticed John and Mike coming in and said hastily to Sherlock “By the way, there´s a new corpse in the morgue, if you want to look at it. I thought you might want to, it´s one of the latest, you know, victims. It has the same mark like the others, but maybe you can find something else. Just wanted you to know..” she drifted off unsure, glancing one more time at Sherlock, who was still not looking at her but staring intensely through the microscope. With a slight dropping of her shoulders, she then turned to the approaching men, smiling questioningly. 

“Hi Molly,” said Mike good humouredly, “this is John Watson, he´s an experienced doctor and my friend, I´m showing him round the place. We studied together here back in the days, even shared a flat for a short time. He´s just back in London from serving in Afghanistan,” Mike told her proudly, giving her one of his trademark smiles. John noticed Sherlock looking up sharply at the words “shared a flat”, giving Mike an evaluative look he didn´t seemed to notice, before shortly glancing to John and then back through his microscope within a moment, seemingly reassured (it was never easy to tell with Sherlock, but John seemed to be able to read him a bit better with each passing day). 

“Nice to meet you, I´m Molly Hooper, I work at the morgue,” the friendly woman smiled warmly at John and lightly shook the hand John was offering her. He responded equally friendly and they did a bit of small talk, before they were interrupted by Sherlock, who suddenly popped up from his microscope: “I want to see the victim now. John, come with us. You are an army doctor, hopefully a good one, sure you´ve seen a lot of violent deaths and despair and are able to assist me, now that you´re already here,“ he rambled rather abruptly, effectively ending the small talk between the other three, which were now blinking at Sherlock in varying degrees of surprise. 

“Sure!” John agreed without hesitation and followed Sherlock and Molly into the morgue, while Mike hastily bid his farewell. John smiled amused, even just mentioning going to the morgue had always been the most efficient way of getting rid of Mike. This often came in handy, when he chattered too much or wanted to question John about something he didn´t wanted to talk about. Just say “morgue” and he was faster out of the room then you can say “examination”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer to the real action! About two or three (no promising) chapters to go before this story will hit its first proper crime scene (I don´t count the morgue). Jay! There´s still much to come. :)


	12. At the morgue

Sherlock stepped back from the body, having examined a little spot on the neck of the men with a small magnifying glass. After pocketing it, he winked John closer, inviting him to have a look, too. 

John switched places with Sherlock and leaned in closely over the head of the dead body, sniffing carefully at the mouth and doing some other checks. “Been dead for a while – about 30 hours I would say,” he estimated the time of death. “I can´t see any injuries, apart from the small needle mark on the side of his neck. Not intoxicated, as far as I can tell from the smell. But I would definitely do a tox screen, since the needle mark is on a location where it´s very unlikely that this men has inserted the needle himself.” “This is all? No guess at his profession?” Sherlock inquired John. The latter nodded slowly, while frantically thinking. The corpse didn´t even had clothes on, no way could he figure out his profession, but there must be something he missed, why else would Sherlock ask this. John quickly scanned over the body to recheck: unharmed lower body, arms, head and torso, neck with needle mark on one side and hickey on the other – surely Sherlock wouldn´t want him to point out a love bite? 

“I also couldn´t find anything else.” Molly agreed. “And of course I will do the tox screen,” she reassured John, “Greg told me so anyway – even if the other two screenings didn´t show anything.” 

“Greg?” Sherlock interrupted, “who´s Greg?” Molly looked slightly shocked. “Greg Lestrade, the detective inspector, you work with since what – five years?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean Graham Lestrade. Why do you keep calling him Greg? It sounds ridiculous!” Sherlock sneered. “Because his name is actually Greg?” Molly laughed shyly. “Really?” Sherlock frowned at her, sounding a tad bit unsure. “Anyway, you won´t find anything with the screening – same as the others since the cause of death is exactly the same. The needle with an untraceable toxin was inserted from behind by a right-handed person with average height, very quickly and professionally, quite clear from the absence of any bruising and the insertion angle,” he took a breath. “Instead,” he continued, “you better tell Gregory to check all orchestras and string ensembles in London if they´re missing a violinist. Really, you two should’ve noticed the typical violinists' neck mark. It bright red!” Sherlock looked at them critically, scrutinising them with his steel blue eyes.

John blinked, astonished. “It´s a violinists' neck mark?” he stuttered, feeling unnerved under Sherlock’s unblinking stare. He could slap himself for automatically assuming it was just a hickey. “Yes of course it is, what did you think?” Sherlock asked in an irritated voice. “And don´t keep repeating my words, that’s an utterly annoying habit!” Sherlock narrowed his eyes. 

John pressed his lips tightly together and prevented himself from looking down at his shoes. Sherlock hadn´t been that rude since the incident with the tea tray and it made him feel a bit uneasy. Well, very uneasy, to be honest. “I don´t think you need me here any longer,” John stated, after bravely staring back into Sherlock´s eyes for a few seconds, which seemed to last forever. “It was nice meeting you, Molly. Good luck with the autopsy,” he added to the brown haired woman and turned to leave the morgue, keeping himself very straight and his shoulders backward, like he used to do as an army doctor. Sherlock, for once, was too baffled to retort, only watching him go.


	13. Nightmares and blankets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: PTSD..

…he was running along a dusty street, the bright evening sun above it blinding his eyes. Even so, he could make out fellow soldiers all around him fighting a battle against the oncoming enemy. Quite a lot were already down, injured or dead, and it was his duty to save the injured ones. He was armoured heavily like the rest of them, what was necessary given the environment. And of course, as an army doctor, he too has had combat training and the wise. So each time an opposing soldier was coming too near, he was fighting him just like his soldier comrades did, not just to support their team, but to save the injured soldiers who no longer could fight for themselves. Just as he was approaching a battered guy who was lying on the sandy ground and clutching his leg in agony, John heard heavy footprints coming from behind. He swirled around (not half as elegantly as Sherlock would have) aiming his weapon on the enemy still a good distance away from them and shot without hesitation. The bullet went right through his forehead, making the man go down with blood splashing out of the wound. Somehow, time was moving slower in battle, so John felt like watching the blood splatter in slow motion, cascading through the air in a dramatic way and jet somewhat beautiful against the much duller surrounding colours. But he didn´t had time to enjoy the view. 

He moved back around to the injured soldier and started working on him, kneeing in the dust besides him. The soldier’s leg was already bathed in red, so he had to stop the bleeding first. He wrapped a bandage tightly around the leg, ignoring the anguished cry of his patient. Time was relevant with injuries like this or he would normally have given him pain relieve medication first, but stabilising him was the first priority and since the battle was on-going, he must only do the most relevant aid and then move on to the next critically wound men. Another enemy soldier came running from his right. This one didn´t have a gun, he must have lost it in the battle, raging most viciously in the direction he was apparently fleeing from. John reached toward his own gun, still kneeing on the ground, his hands red and slippery from blood (not his own, thank god). But before he could grab it properly, he was tackled to the ground, a bulky muscled man weighting him down and trying to strangle him. He struggled under his steel like grip, trying to pry open his fingers, but it was impossible to do so with his slippery hands. John couldn´t breathe and his vision was beginning to cloud as he was trying to think of a way out. But there wasn´t one. His vision was getting darker and darker, his energy was dwindling rapidly. He was thinking “God please..” 

 

A loud gunshot woke John abruptly from his nightmare. 

Panicked, he jerked out of his bed and took a moment to listen and orientate himself. Another two shots sounded from downstairs and now John was sure that he didn´t just dreamed the dreaded sound. He opened the drawer beside his bed, wanting to grab his gun, but to his shock, it wasn´t there anymore. “Damn it!” he thought, taking a glass bottle as a weapon instead, before running quickly but silently (his army training paid off now) down the stairs to investigate.

John cautiously entered the living room, expecting anything. Well, anything except Sherlock shooting the wall. “What the heck, Sherlock?” he asked grimly in his raspy morning voice, “What are you doing?” He hated it to be chased out of his bed for nothing, especially this early. The sun wasn´t even up yet and John had never been the kind of person who´s instantly awake and jolly in the morning even after a good 8 hours sleep and he couldn´t have had more than 4 hours this night and had just woken from a bloody nightmare.  
Sherlock turned around and glared at him shortly, before walking around flailing with his arms in the air and the pistol still in his hand “Bored. I´m bored, John!” “Yeah, I got that,” John replied grumpily, setting down the glass bottle on the nearest available space and rubbing his sleepy eyes, which stung from the sudden brightness of the well-lit living room. 

“You thought it was an armed housebreaker,” Sherlock stated, eying the glass bottle. “Honestly John, it must be so relaxing, having your little brain capacity. If the scenario you so naively pictured would have started to unravel, you wouldn´t have heard a single shot since I would never have let myself be surprised and much less shot at by a stupid, small minded criminal. Even if he did manage to break in, which I doubt very much thanks to the burglar-proof front door you didn´t even noticed yet we have, which, I hate to say, Mycroft insisted on the very minute I first stepped into 221B Baker Street, even so he wouldn’t have made it that far since I would’ve stopped him long before, you really should know that!” 

“And there was another one of Sherlock´s trademark speeches,” John thought wearily, sitting down in his arm chair, staring at his flatmate with a frown. He wanted to go back to sleep before he was too much awake to do so, but he first had to make sure Sherlock would stop the crap and hand him back his pistol, and he wouldn´t be able to persuade him returning the weapon if he didn´t choose his words wisely. He shouldn´t be upset by his rather insulting words, logically he knew that Sherlock didn´t said them to anger him, but he couldn´t help feeling hurt, especially since he was pissed already after what Sherlock said to him at the morgue and this was just like rubbing salt in the wound.

“Fine. It wasn´t a housebreaker. Now would you please hand me back my gun? You aren´t supposed to shoot the wall with it. Think about Mrs Hudson.” John tried to keep his voice calm, looking up to Sherlock with his best practiced this-was-a-bit-not-good-stare. Unluckily, Sherlock had no intention to give surrender. Instead, he kept wandering around, circling the room and passing his chair, unimpressed with John´s demeanour. “Why should I?” he asked, making a turn back towards the wall. “Didn´t you hear me, I´m” – he paused a second to shoot the wall again, making John flinch from the loud noise – “bored!” – he shoot a second time to empathise his point. But John heard him no longer. The sound of the repeated painfully loud gunshot so close in front of him had pushed his well-contained PTSD over the edge, sending him straight into a dark place of his own mind, where his worst memory lurked, waiting to engulf him with pain and agony.

It wasn´t until Sherlock turned around energetically that he noticed something was horribly wrong. John was grapping his head in his hands, his shoulders hunched upwards and his whole position being that of someone who was utterly terrified. His face, what he could he of it, was distorted into a grimace, eyes tightly pressed together.

Sherlock froze, his childish mood instantly replaced by something dangerously close to a guilt stricken shock which sent highly unpleasant feelings to his belly. “Stupid! Stupid!” Sherlock thought with a part of his brain, wanting to slap himself, while the rest of his brain was frantically searching for pieces of information how to treat someone having an acute PTSD attack. He should have thought about the effects close gun shots can have on people who have been to war. How could he not have considered that? Why was he such an emotionless freak, not caring about other people’s emotions? And how did he just see it now, see it in all painful clarity how mean he had been, how much he had hurt people, how much he had hurt John? Sherlock´s mind (the part not still searching) replayed his earlier rudeness and this time he didn´t failed to recognise the hurt in John´s eyes. It seemed to replay it over and over now, zooming in on the broken look in his best friend’s eyes. It was like Sherlock´s brain was having a short circuit of some sort. But right now, he needed to pull out of it, or he wouldn´t be able to help his friend.

He fetched his phone and quickly googled “ptsd acute treatment”, since the acceptable time spent for research in his mind palace with no helpful results was over. His eyes skimmed over the results, clicking some links which seemed promising, but they only lead to long term treatment methods, not telling how to deal with an episode. Frustrated, he throw away his phone and looked back to John, who was now whimpering silently, still with closed eyes and a trembling body. The sight made him feel nauseous. Hesitantly, he stepped closer, still unsure how to react. He had to calm him down somehow, but Sherlock had never been good with emotions, quite the opposite, so how is he supposed to know… “Wait,” Sherlock suddenly interrupted his own thoughts, forcing them to take a different direction. He just remembered how John had visibly calmed down after the kitchen incident with the shattered teacups, when he had laid his hand on his shoulder. Maybe this would help here, too. 

Standing right in front of John, Sherlock slowly leaned a bit down towards him and laid his right hand on Johns left shoulder, very soft at first, so as to not startle him, and then with a bit more pressure. John was looking so small in his arm chair, curling in like this, it made Sherlock´s heart throb painfully. His heart! Which hadn´t hurt like that for a very long time, since he closed off all undesirable feelings from it, or so he thought. He would keep that position, not exactly comfortable as it was, until John would find his way back to reality. It was the least he could do to be there for him, after he practically pushed him in the dark himself. 

John´s mind eventually drifted back to the present, but he hesitated to open his eyes immediately, having just relived having his shoulder shot in mind-disturbingly intensity, still feeling the agonising pain throbbing through his left shoulder, fading away slowly. But there was something else, too. A reassuring pressure slightly above the source of pain. A large hand clutching his shoulder?!

John opened his eyes slowly only to found Sherlock´s face mere inches from his own, containing a frozen expression, showing worry in his beautiful greenish-blue eyes. “Sherlock´s worried about me?” John thought, his pupils dilating involuntarily, blinking a few times in wonder. This seemed to unfreeze Sherlock, who´s gaze intensified as he asked John: “Are you alright?” 

John nodded, still feeling a little bit dazed and not trusting his voice, very aware of the closeness of Sherlock´s face. He could lean just a little bit nearer, then he would be able to.. John licked his lips and his eyes flickered to Sherlock´s heart shaped lips and back to his fascinating stormy ocean eyes. A fine tremble went through his body, but this time out of pleasure, not angst. 

Sadly, Sherlock understood it wrongly. Worry returned into his eyes as he quickly stood up, saying “I´m fetching a blanket,” before going off to do so, missing the look of disappointment in John´s eyes.

He returned not a minute later with the blanket and draped it nicely around John, making sure he was completely surrounded by it, ignoring John´s weak protests completely. After he was done, only John´s face wasn´t looking out of the large blanket. John, even being a tad bit disappointed because of the lost opportunity, was glad for the warmth and joyful that Sherlock was caring so nicely for him. He thanked him warm-heartedly, lost in the moment. When Sherlock smiled crookedly, but made no move go anywhere, apart from walking to and fro the perimeter in a leisurely pace, John belatedly realised that Sherlock was left with a bed missing a blanket, since he gave it to him… 

“Sherlock, don´t you need a blanket to sleep? You could take mine, if you want to. If you don´t mind, I mean. I would give you yours back, but I guess you insist for me to keep it for now?” John sheepishly muttered from the depths of his blanket cocoon. Sherlock stopped wandering, turning to John to regard him. “As much as I would love sleeping with your blanket, I can assure you it´s not necessary. I fully intend to stay up the rest of the night,” he assured him in his baritone velvet like voice, which John so adored. The sandy blonde only murmured “ok” in reply, again lost in his thoughts: “My god, the blanked, smelling so deliciously like Sherlock and now his sexy deep voice… He´s driving me crazy! And he said he would love to sleep with my blanket, what did he mean with that? Could it be that he likes me back?!” John clambered onto this thought, although it didn´t help with the arousal that was growing in him. He was damn lucky that the blanket was so bulky.

Sherlock meanwhile started moving again, his steps leading him to his violin. He picked it up, shortly looking to John questioningly, as if asking him for his approval. John smiled encouragingly and Sherlock started to play a heart-melting melody. As if John´s heart needed any more melting…


	14. Entanglement

Soon after Sherlock started playing, John fell asleep. Sherlock kept playing for a little while longer, being careful not to be too loud and only playing soft lullabies. When he was positive that John was soundly sleeping, he put away his violin and sat in his leather chair opposite of his flatmate. 

Sherlock looked at his friend thoughtfully, trying to figure out what made him so special that he struck so many feelings in him since the short time he moved in 221B Baker Street. No one had ever done that before. He never even considered anyone his friend, not even Mrs Hudson or Lestrade. Mrs Hudson was more like a mother figure and he respected her deeply, but also would be annoyed by her very quickly. As for Lestrade, he was glad for the cases he could take thanks to the detective inspector and was able to get along with him way better than with his extraordinary dumb colleges, but besides that, there wasn´t much connecting the two men. Then there was Molly from the morgue. She was always very easily persuaded into showing him the latest corpses or letting him use the lab in Bart’s, but her over attentive behaviour was often annoying him. Not to think about his brother Mycroft, he couldn´t stand to see him more than a few minutes in a few months, preferably less.

John was nothing like the lot of them, in fact nothing like anyone Sherlock ever met. It wasn´t like he couldn´t be irritating at times, but somehow it was bothering him much less to be annoyed by John than by anybody else. He even thought about taking him along to his cases. Yes, he would definitely do that. John could assist him and, being an experienced army doctor, would be of more use to him than others, helping him with analysing a body in a medical way and with the necessary legwork. His ribs should be healed well enough by now for that, too. 

The rest of the night, Sherlock spent in his mind palace, sorting the newest developments of the “needle killer” case, as the police called it, and looking through every bit of information he got so far. It wasn´t much, but what was bothering him most, that there wasn´t a link between the victims to be found, so far. Hopefully, there would be another victim soon, which would give them the necessary clues. 

 

When John woke up, his back and neck were stiff from sleeping in a sitting position and he was way too warm from having the blanket wrapped so tightly around him all night. He blinked sleepily and saw Sherlock sitting in his leather chair, obviously deep in his mind palace and not noticing anything around him. John took his moment to breathe in deeply, savouring Sherlock´s still lingering scent on the blanket. It was delicious, a bit like fresh pinewood, a hint of citrus and just a touch of smoky bonfire. After having breathed in deeply a few times, he carefully disentangled his body (he still had his pyjamas on) from the blanket. It had, as he noticed only now, a nice pattern of dark brown crosses with burgundy dots between them on a creamy white background. It fitted Sherlock, looking extravagant and expensive. Smiling, he went into the bathroom.

“..should really eat, Sherlock. John won´t be pleased if you look so thin!” Sherlock emerged from his mind palace to see a stern looking Mrs Hudson standing before him, holding a tray with tea and scones besides small bowls with jam and clotted cream. Sherlock ignored her and popped up from his chair to go to the window, looking down on the busy street. Mrs Hudson, used to Sherlock´s behaviour but worried about his eating habits, placed the tray on the only free space on the kitchen table (where John used to eat his breakfast), continuing to scold him. 

Meanwhile, John came back to join them, freshly showered and dressed. He smiled to Mrs Hudson in greeting and hungrily regarded the fresh scones on the table. “Oh John, don´t you think Sherlock should eat?” Mrs Hudson gladly included him in her battle. “I fully agree,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table and taking a small sip of the hot tea. “Thank you for the scones, Mrs Hudson, they smell delicious!” he added extra loud in the direction of Sherlock, who was still standing at the window, and grabbed one of it, biting in after loading it with a generous amount of jam and a bit of clotted cream. It tasted just as delicious as it smelled.

“I can´t eat now, I have a case to solve,” Sherlock suddenly said, watching something or rather someone through the window, “There´s a new body!” John looked up questioningly, still munching. “Lestrade is coming, he wouldn´t if there wasn´t another corpse,” Sherlock added way more happy and excited than anyone else would while taking about a corpse. “Oh dear,” Mrs Hudson mumbled, clearing a nasty looking something off the table, throwing it in the bin. “Mrs Hudson! Stay away from my experiments!” Sherlock shouted, outraged. John sighted as Mrs Hudson quickly fled the room, going down the stairs to let Lestrade in. 

The latter stormed in the flat not a minute later. He gave John a fleeting glance, but didn´t seemed to recognise him. Not that John would bother. The detective inspector took a deep breath, a bit out of breath from running up the stairs, and started saying “There has been..,” when Sherlock chimed in “..another needle victim,” stealing his words. “How did you know that?” Lestrade looked at Sherlock in disbelieve. “I didn´t. it was quite obvious the moment I saw you rushing to 221B Baker Street,” Sherlock replied, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. “Of course it was,” Lestrade sighted, rushing a hand through his light grey hair. He threw another short glance at John, seemingly unsure whether to continue talking about an on-going case with a stranger inside the room. “You can talk openly. John is my friend and assistant, he will help me with the case,” Sherlock stated assertively, but with a warm undertone to his usually cold voice. John and Lestrade both stared at Sherlock with their mouths open (on John´s was a smudge of jam, through). “He called me his friend!” John thought with a warm feeling growing inside him. Damn yes, he would indeed help him with whatever work Sherlock needed help with. 

Lestrade was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, still struggling to cope with the new information. In all the years since he knew Sherlock, he never heard him talk about someone in such a warm way, much less call someone his friend. He wondered what this John did to achieve such a high value in the consulting detective´s eyes. It must have been something truly spectacular, maybe rescuing his life or helping him to get rid of his brother Mycroft.

Sherlock started walking around the flat, circling Lestrade and bombarding him with question, completely back to his usual cold and purely intellectual self: “Where has the body been found? Did the victim leave any notes? Have you gathered new information on the killers? What about the relatives’ you´ve questioned? Anything useful from them?” Lestrade gathered himself and started answering the questions, basically negating all of them apart from the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be at the new crime scene :D
> 
> Btw, I would be happy to recieve a little more feedback on my chapters and/or work! Feel free to tell me what you think about it! Even if it´s just a one-word comment about a certain paragraph or whatever. ;)
> 
> Have a nice week! :)


	15. At the crime scene

They stood around the latest victim, this time a strongly built middle-aged white woman with long brown curly hair, dressed in rather conservative clothing, lying on the floor of a smallish green house, a good distance outside of London. The puncture mark was barely visible on her thick, short neck and all the people crowding the crime scene were sweating in the green house, heated up by the sun which was shining more brightly than usual today.

“Oh! Ah!” Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, getting excited from the new idea which just popped into his brain. It made totally sense if he looked at the facts like this, he really should have thought about it earlier. Looking at all the completely clueless faces clattered around the crime scene, it was painfully obvious though, that no one else made that connection. Wasn´t it Einstein who said 'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.' Well, he definitely agreed with him. It was so annoying to always have to explain everything in detail to get it into their dull little brains. 

“Don´t you see?” Sherlock started, gesturing around with his hands, “there´s nothing linking the victims, absolutely nothing!” Sadly, he only earned more questioning stares. Apart from a sneering Anderson, that is, who apparently thought he hadn´t lowered the IQ of the entire area enough already, stating the obvious facts again (and Sherlock hated nothing more than dull repetition): “Yeah. Apart from the way they were murdered, all poisoned with an injection trough a syringe needle!” Sherlock couldn´t stand to bear him any longer and turned his eyes to the forensic scientist, dismissing him: “Get out Anderson, as always, you´re two steps behind anyone else, which is quite impressible, given how far behind me anyone else is!” Anderson opened his mouth in protest, but fumingly left the green house after Lestrade signalled him to go. Sherlock took a relieved breath now that Anderson was gone. 

Gregson, or whatever his name was again, started to bore him now too, though. “So what did you mean, Sherlock?” the detective inspector asked. Sherlock rolled his eyes in annoyance, staring at Lestrade angrily, “Before that idiot interrupted me with his…” “Come on, get to the point, Sherlock, we want to hear your thought about the case, don´t bully the poor guy,” John suddenly chimed in and looked at a way at Sherlock which somehow made him feel just a tiny bit regretful. He cleared his voice and continued, speaking more to John then to the rest:

“Like I said before, there´s no connection of any sorts between the victims, apart from the obvious. None of them ever met or even went to the same school as kids. None of them look too similar, or shared the same character traits, each one is different, as if the killer deliberately chose people with no connection or as if chosen randomly, but they aren´t.”  
“But what are they, then?” Lestrade still struggled to keep up with Sherlock´s train of thoughts. 

“They are all victims of perfectly organised crime, really, can´t you see it still?” Sherlock looked around. John, suddenly understanding what he was implying, gasped lightly, just loud enough for Sherlock to hear and look at him expectantly. 

“The murderers are contract killers, working together! So that´s why they seem so random, ´cause they really are! At least from the view of the killers,” John exclaimed excitedly, looking at Sherlock for his approval. 

“Exactly, John!” Sherlock agreed, giving him a crooked smile and feeling proud for the sandy blonde, who was apparently getting better with catching up on Sherlock´s thoughts more than the whole lot of Lestrade´s forces. “These murders are indeed clearly accomplished by a group of contract killers.”

In the following minutes, a lot of Scotland Yard´s officers started talking excitedly in more or less hushed voices, while Lestrade tried to sort out the best way to handle the investigations following the new findings. While they were still discussing, Sherlock rushed out of the green house, clearly keen on getting out of the heat. 

John hurried to follow him, but before he could step through the door, a hand grabbed his arm, holding him back. He turned around to gaze at a sergeant with curly brown hair and deep brown eyes, looking at him with her eyebrows knitted together, like she was worried about something. 

“You sure you want to follow him out? I would keep my distance from Sherlock Holmes if I were you, he´s a freak. You know why he's here? He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. I don´t know where you´ve met him, but you can´t trust him, you never know what he will do next. I just felt like I should warn you, as you seem to be a new acquaintance of him, surely you don´t want to make friends with the wrong sort,” she said, staring into John´s eyes speculatively. 

The army doctor yanked back his arm, not liking the way the woman talked about Sherlock. “Why do you call him a freak?” John narrowed his eyes at her. “He´s a human like you and I, you have no right to call him that! Anyway, I think I can tell who the wrong sorts are, thanks,” he added coolly, making a move to leave. But the sergeant quickly stepped in his way, raising her eyebrows in wonder and kept talking: “You like him?! You fucking like him,” she exclaimed, not believing it. John opened his mouth and closed it again, deciding that this woman wasn´t worth fighting with. 

He turned away, making another attempt of leaving, but she grabbed his arm again, quite strongly this time. “You know, he won´t like you back,” she chuntered on. “He hates people. All people. He may smile at you now and then, even laugh with you, as long as you´re all useful to him, to keep you encouraged to do all his stupid stuff for him. But as soon as you´re no longer useful, you´re out. As soon as he gets bored with you, he´ll let your heart shutter like a teenage boy´s, not batting an eye. Because he just is like that to people, he´s a psychopath.” She finally let go of his slightly aching arm, turning back to continue her business and leaving him standing there, looking after her with a deep frown and a slightly unsettled expression. Because if he´s honest, she just about told him what he most secretly feared: That the great Sherlock Holmes is just letting him stay in 221B and put up with him, even seemingly caring for him, because and as long as he is useful for him, being an experienced army doctor who´s conveniently drawn towards danger and is more than eager to assist him with his cases in addition to doing all daily chores like cleaning and cooking. 

Eventually, John came back to his senses and stumbles outside. He breathed in the fresh air and looked around searching for Sherlock, but the consulting detective was nowhere to be seen. John checked his phone, but there were no messages. The reception wasn´t too good, either. Sherlock must´ve already taken a cab back to Baker Street. Leaving him standing alone, feeling like a fool. 

Sighting, John started walking towards and then along the street, hoping to catch a cab as well in due time. But, lucky as he was, it took nearly half an hour until a cab minded his frantic waving and stopped for him and another half hour, until he arrived in front of 221B Baker Street. Of course, the price for the drive was exorbitant, leaving a big hole in John´s purse.


	16. At the Yard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so sorry for not posting for a whole month (maybe you realised I added some smaller works during that time). I´ll try to work more intensively on this work again in the next time. 
> 
> It´s also not the most exiting chapter, but I hope you will still like it. As always, you are welcome to give feedback! 
> 
> Enjoy and be save 😘

Later that day, Sherlock and John took a cab to the yard for a meeting with Lestrade. The DI wanted to hear everything Sherlock could tell him about the contract killers, while Sherlock wanted the file of the latest ones (he had the others already), as well as the clothes and belongings the victims had on them when they were killed.

As usual, Sherlock rushed into Lestrade´s office without knocking, John trailing behind him. Greg looked up from the files lying on his desk. “Sherlock, John, come in,” he greeted them despite the fact that they were already standing right in front of. Sherlock snorted and opened his mouth for some nasty remark, but John stopped him with a warning push in his side and asked Greg: “are those the files of the victims?” 

Sherlock, not liking being reprimanded by his flat-mate, chimed in with his cold matter-of-facts voice before Lestrade could answer: “Of course they are, really John just look at the pictures sticking out, you see but you do not observe. Which seems to be a rather durable trait of you, I might add. Lestrade, where are the clothes?” 

As usually, Sherlock came straight to the point, having no patience for any kind of small talk not involving pointing out flaws of those around him. John bit on his lower lip, the last few hours Sherlock had been an annoying git and it seemed like he intended to continue being one for a while yet. 

Lestrade, long since used to Sherlock´s demeanour, told them they could pick them up from the morgue later. He opened his mouth to ask his first question, but Sherlock, knowing exactly what he wanted to know, was faster. 

“The contract killers are two white men, one being about 5,8 feet tall, the other 5.6 to 5.7 feet. Given by the footsteps found around the crime scenes, the shorter man has a slim figure and is acting more as a backup and as distraction, dressed in unsuspicious clothes, possibly white t-shirt and blue jeans, while the other with a more muscular and athletic figure, dressed in black, sneaks up to the victim with the poison syringe in his right hand, waiting for the perfect moment to strike without a fight.”

“Whoa, hold on. How do you know how they are dressed?” Lestrade asked, lifting his eyebrows questioningly. 

“John, tell him!” Sherlock ordered, snatching the file from Lestrade´s desk and rushing off again, as if he had not a second to spare. John shook his head after him as he didn´t liked Sherlock´s habit to leave him behind. Someday this tendency may bring him into trouble and John would rather be at his side when he should really need him. Well, at least this time he knew where to look at him after answering Lestrade´s question.

“Sherlock found a tiny piece of a black cloth in the green house, torn off by a rose just behind the place where the victim was lying,” John could tell this the DI since he had watched Sherlock closely in the greenhouse while the consulting detective had been searching the area around the body before looking at the body itself. Apparently, Sherlock had been very aware of John watching him, not that John was surprised by that. Well, at least this was something he didn´t disapprove of. He had even asked him to examine the body after he did, same as with the body in the morgue just recently. John had been very happy to help, even if he couldn´t find anything Sherlock hadn´t already and regardless of the strain it had put on his just about nearly healed ribs, kneeling down and leaning above the body in an unfavourable but necessary angle. 

“And about the white shirt and blue jeans, well that´s just his assumption because white is generally a colour which suggest openness and an easy going character, while blue means trustworthy. This is also the reason why it is good to wear white and blue at an job interview. It might be a bit far outstretched, but these are also often appearing, unsuspicious colours and if these killers are good at their job, which apparently they are, this is the best they could do to blend in,” John explained. 

“I see,” the DI said, scratching at his stubble. “Well, I will go and inform my people, then, and I suppose you will join Sherlock? Do you know the way to the morgue?”

“Yes, I know the way, thanks. Good look with the search and please don’t hesitate to contact me or Sherlock if you find a new trail.” 

Lestrade nodded, smiled politely at John again and they both left the DI´s office and went their different ways. 

 

Entering the morgue, he found Sherlock and Molly Hooper standing in front of a pile of bags, filled with the victims clothes and belongings. “…will bring them back without burning them,” Sherlock just said in a slightly annoyed tone to Molly, turning around as he spoke, when he heard John entering. 

“John! Come and help me with those bags, we need to bring them to Baker Street at once,” he ordered him, already taking the first few bags, before rushing out, without waiting to see if John would do as he said. John hurried to load his arms full with the remaining ones (which were more than the amount which Sherlock took) and smiled apologising at Molly, who looked a little sad. She smiled back at him and said: “Good luck. I hope you will find something and solve that case quick. I can do without getting more corpses. I mean more of those corpses. I wouldn´t have work if people would stop dying completely,” she laughed shortly. 

“Yeah, I guess it would get very crowded very fast if no one ever died,” John joined her laughing before going outside to once more look for Sherlock. 

This time, at least, he was still there, waiting impatiently until John was at his side before waving for a cab, which instantly appeared, thanks to Sherlock´s secret cab summoning powers. Sherlock went in behind the driver and left the door open for John, who had some troubles climbing in with all the bags he was holding. “Come on, John, the game is on! You don´t want to waste any of our precious time!” Sherlock exclaiming happily. “How could I?” John mumbled sarcastically, more to himself, when the cab started for Baker Street.

Still, he really was happy to see Sherlock so ecstatic about this case and looked very much forward to helping him solve it, not only because he craved the thrill, but also because it gave him a change to interact more deeply with his flatmate. Hopefully, it would help to deepen their partnership (he couldn´t really see it as a relationship yet). 

During the drive, he tried to not constantly throw glances at Sherlock, not wanting to creep him out, but couldn´t help looking at his elegant companion every second or third turn. He just looked to damn good to ignore it completely.


	17. The search

“We need to get hold of the poison,” Sherlock mumbled, staring out of the window of the cab they were in. “What?” John asked, as he had been distracted by other thoughts. “The poison, John!” Sherlock said as if he were stupid. 

“We need to get a sample of it. When we know what they use, we may be able to find them via the source they got it from. And Molly could find an antidote,” he added as an afterthought. 

Of course finding the killers was more important for him than helping the next poor sods who would be poisoned. If they would be found early enough to help them, that is, which was very unlikely since that poison seemed to be highly effective. Therefore, John had little hope that they would rescue the next victim, but as a doctor, he had to do anything in his power to try to.

“Yes, that would help,” he agreed, looking out of his side of the cab at the slowly darkening sky and the street, buildings and pedestrians below. They were driving through one of the many busy parts of London in the late evening, so progress was slow. But it wasn´t their goal to get anywhere fast. 

Instead, they were walking and driving around London looking out for the needle killers, since Sherlock had deduced that they were likely to strike this night. That was also the reason why this time, John took his gun with him, hidden by his clothes, and why they stayed together instead of searching separately, which would be more effective, because John insisted that they stayed together (Sherlock reluctantly gave in after some arguing). Also, they had found out that their clients always engage them through the dark web and pay them in advance with Bitcoins, making it nearly impossible to trace them.

“Stop in front of that shop!” Sherlock suddenly ordered their cab driver, who obliged. Letting John pay, the consulting detective stepped out of the cab and looked down a smallish side street, passing along a small park interspersed with benches. John stepped right beside him a moment later, alerted by Sherlock´s exited voice, when he stopped the cab. 

“You see the two men on that half hidden bench behind those bushed?” Sherlock asked John in a quiet voice. 

“Yeah.. You thing they are our men?” John asked back in a similar hushed voice. 

“Their statures and clothes fit, but we have to see their faces and what they have with them. They mustn´t see us, so be very quiet and follow my steps! If you notice something, text me, but make sure your phone is set on mute!” Sherlock said, while adjusting the settings of his own device. 

John hastily imitated him and didn´t hesitate to follow, always staying close to the fancy belstaff coat whooshing in front of him. As they were nearing the two guys in the park, his excitement grew. Finally something would happen and he would be part of it! Finally, the misery of his own life started to fade, being replaced to not only excitement but also joy for working so close together with his idol, the great Sherlock Holmes.

He wasn´t prepared, though, for the sight the two of them stumbled upon, once they sneaked past the big bushes. Sherlock saw it first, huffing soundlessly in annoyance, but stepped silently to the side so John could see it, too. The two men, now sitting as close together as humanly possible, were snogging heavily. Clearly, unless this was some sort of clever distraction which John doubted very much, these weren´t the guys they were looking for. 

John sighted internally, not only because they were back at point zero, but also because Sherlock would most likely be in a miserable mood now since his assumption has proven wrong, which rather rarely happened. Besides that, it gave him a small pang, seeing a happy gay couple doing something he could only dream of doing with the tall investigator besides him. It wasn´t always easy to be John Watson… 

As if that wasn´t enough, Sherlock suddenly stepped in front of the couple, effectively disturbing them mid-kiss. The startled men disentangled themselves, their eyes widened. John bid his lower lip, feeling sorry for them. He reluctantly joined Sherlock´s side, who knew what the genius was going to say, he might have to intervene.

“Did you see something suspicious or unusual around here?” Sherlock asked the two lovers, after quickly having deduced them. They thereupon shared an half angry, half uneasy look. “Before you were too occupied with sharing your bodily fluids, that is” he added dismissingly. “Sherlock!” hissed John under his breath, warning him to be polite. His tall companion wasn´t fussed, though. Instead, he continued to stare at the strangers like they were a semi interesting experiment of his, while they were staring back angrily.

Eventually, one of the men narrowed his eyes slightly, before answering: “We didn´t see anything suspicious until you two turned up here!” 

“Fair enough!” said John, before continuing in a more serious voice, “Listen, we are really sorry for disturbing you, but maybe you can tell us, if you saw two middle aged white men on your way here? We are helping the police investigate a case and finding these two is highly important as they could very well be the criminals who are responsible for the recent deaths.” 

His approach seemed to sooth the tense atmosphere, as John noted with relief, so he added some further details: “One of the men is about 5,8 feet tall, athletic, wearing black clothes and is either bald-headed or wearing a cap or some other headwear. The other is slim, a bit shorter and quite ordinary dressed, with brown hair.” 

The latest information concerning the hair of the men had been obtained just recently, after throughout search of all of the murder sites and a little help from Molly, who ran DNA-tests on all the hair samples they found, ruling out everyone who wasn´t a suspect.

Sadly, the two didn´t notice someone fitting his description or anything unusual at all. But just as Sherlock made a move to leave, the sturdier one of them seemed to think of something and started talking to Sherlock´s tall back: “We didn´t saw anything today, but I might have seen those men yesterday, at the bus station on my way home from work.” Sherlock froze in mid-step, but didn´t turn around, clearly waiting for something more than just a “might be”. 

The bearded men scratched his beard, but John´s friendly nod encouraged the man, who seemed to be a bit irritated by talking to someone´s back, to go on, describing the men he saw in more detail.

Sherlock´s attention though, only was being caught before the end of the next sentence told by their observer. 

“He caught my eye because I always leave at the same time as do many others, so I know the people who are taking the same 17:10 bus every day from sight. There aren´t a lot of shops in the area, mainly old warehouses and some smaller companies, so it´s unusual for strangers to hang around there, except from the first of every month when there could be new people starting their job. But it´s the 23rd, so…” he trailed off, blinking in surprise when John´s well-dressed partner turned his back on them again and started to walk away towards the street in long, purposeful steps.

John wasn´t as surprised, surely Sherlock had already deduced where the man was working. He hastily thanked the men for their information, wishing them a nice day, before running after his flat-mate once again, who was standing at the curbside, hailing a taxi. He really didn´t wanted to be left behind this time, as it could very well get dangerous where they were heading to.


End file.
